-The New Indian Express   BHUBANESWAR: With women's participation in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) on a decline in the State, the Odisha Government has asked the district collectors to adopt women-specific plans to reverse the trend. Apart from specific types of work which are favourable to women, facilities at the work sites and if possible, incentives must also be provided to district coordinators, the collectors have been told. In...

-The Hindu   Narendra Modi has to address not just the current stagnation in manufacturing but also look at ways of stimulating investments in the sector Prime Minister-designate Narendra Modi, it is said, sleeps just six hours a day. Even that could become a luxury as he buckles down to his job and begins the challenging task of turning around the economy. The economic legacy handed down to him by the United Progressive...

-The Hindustan Times   What was inconceivable only few days ago in the corridors of the rural development ministry is now openly being pitched for - how to scale down UPA government's brainchild NREGA. Ministry officials are busy drawing up a blueprint for the new government to tweak NREGA in a bid to increase the efficiency of the 2006 rural job guarantee scheme. Some of the proposed changes include a focus on select blocks...

-The Telegraph   Officials are set to propose to the Narendra Modi government that the UPA's blockbuster rural job scheme be restricted to select districts as the decision in 2008 to extend it to all districts was not required. The officials of the rural development ministry are expected to tell the new minister that the funds allocated for the implementation of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Act (MGNREGA) were not adequate for national...

-Down to Earth   As India elects new government, the 12th Five Year Plan may no longer be pro-poor MUCH hope is pinned on the 12th Five Year Plan that was declared as the first health Plan by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, while drafting the Plan, also termed it "pro-poor" and promised the maximum budget for social welfare schemes. But as the Plan comes into force this...