In a bitter reaction to payment of low wages of Re 1 under MNREGA in Rajasthan, the agitating activists of Suchna Evum Rozgar Ka Adhikar Abhiyan have decided to send this rare "feat" of the government to the " Guinness Book of World Record" as the only of its kind trend in the world. There have been instances in Rajasthan when Re 1 per day was paid as wages for...
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Forever Stuck in a Cycle of Debt and Death by Uddalak Mukherjee
According to the National Crime Records Bureau, since 2003, one Indian farmer has committed suicide every 30 minutes. In 2008, 16,196 farmers took their own lives, bringing the total number of farmer suicides in India between 1997 and 2008 to 199,132. (Significantly, P. Sainath is of the opinion that like all government data, these figures too are unreliable. For when women farmhands kill themselves, their deaths are not enlisted as...
More »Their NREGA wages gone, over 2,000 Dahod farmers give a boycott call by Anupam Chakravartty
Even as the state government mulls over the compulsory voting bill, farmers in the tribal Dahod district have decided to boycott the local elections over non-payment of wages under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). There are about 2,223 such farmers in Fatehpura taluka of Dahod district bordering Rajasthan, who have decided to abstain from voting. Incidentally, police investigation continues in the case in which sarpanchs are alleged to have...
More »Bid to bring MGNREGA pay at par with minimum wages by Anindo Dey
With the state government finally increasing the minimum wages by 35% from January 1, 2011, the focus of the on-going Mazdoor Haq Yatra in the state is now on increasing the wages under MGNREGA from the current freeze at Rs 100 to meet the minimum wages. Not only activists of the Yatra plan to rake up this issue nationally, but with their prime demands from the state met, the entire focus...
More »The mass job guarantee by Aruna Roy & Nachiket Udupa
The sea change that India’s national scheme for rural employment guarantee has accomplished is hard to fathom, its vastness touching the lives or more than 100 million people. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act of 2005 (NREGA, subsequently renamed after Mahatma Gandhi, or MGNREGA) was a landmark in Indian legislation. Under the act, as of April 2008, for the first time in India’s history, all rural citizens have a legal right...
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