-The Hindu Telangana’s experience is instructive The institutionalisation of “social audits” to ensure implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) has been challenging. Since being included in the 2005 Act at the behest of social movements, social audits have been ineffective in most parts of the country due to government indifference. So far, 26 States have created social audit units (SAUs), but the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG’s) detailed guidelines...

-The Hindu Business Line India has withdrawn curbs on US chicken imports, but phytosanitary concerns remain In keeping with its hardline stance on trade matters, the US continues to press for damages against India on poultry import curbs, despite India having relaxed them in recent months. Citing avian influenza concerns, India had for years virtually banned poultry imports from the US, prompting the latter to move the WTO. In 2015, the WTO...

-Newsclick.in Despite providing capital for an economically and socially disastrous project, World Bank’s International Financial Corporation has claimed immunity from legal action. A fishing community in Kutch, Gujarat, has moved several courts in the United States seeking damages from the International Financial Corporation (IFC). The IFC is the private investment lending arm of the World Bank Group, and is hiding from legal action behind an immunity law. The claims were dismissed by the...

-TheWire.in Surjit Bhalla, who draws on CMIE’s database and EPFO data, notes that job creation in 2017 was likely 15 million. New Delhi: The head of the Centre for Monitoring of Indian Economy (CMIE) has accused economist Surjit Bhalla, who is a member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (PMEAC), of distorting and “dishonestly presenting” its nationwide employment survey to claim that India created 15 million jobs in 2017. The CMIE does...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) images of the past ten days show large parts of India are dotted with fires, stretching across Uttar Pradesh (UP), Madhya Pradesh (MP), Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and even some southern states. In sweltering summer, these fires are intensifying heat and causing black carbon (a component of soot with high global warming effect) pollution. Some of these dots may be forest fires...