A thriving black market in kerosene, estimated to be worth Rs 10,000 crore every year, killed additional collector Yeshwant Sonawane. A litre of kerosene sold at ration shops is often costlier than a bottle of packaged water. Most of this "poor man's fuel" is pilfered and sold in the black market for a price that's two or three times higher. It's really money for jam. Sonawane tried to meddle with this...

Even though the Central Government agreed to link the wages paid under MG-NREGA to the Consumer Price Index for Agricultural Labourers (CPIAL), it shied away from paying statutory minimum wages in various states of India. Their logic for this: Lack of clarity on who will bear the extra financial burden—the Centre or the states? A letter from the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to UPA and NAC Chairperson Sonia Gandhi dated 31...

Senior Congress leader Vilasrao Deshmukh, who took charge today as the Union rural development minister, said he would look into the controversy over delinking the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), the government’s largest rural employment programme, from the Minimum Wages Act. “I have to go into the matter, as I am not aware of the ministry’s position and the court rulings in the matter so far,” he said. Yesterday, former Supreme...

A fortnight after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said wages paid under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) would not be linked with minimum wages, Minister of State for Labour Harish Rawat today said NREGA was a flawed law, as it went against the Minimum Wages Act. Rawat told Business Standard the section in the law which contained a contradiction with the minimum wages Act made it a flawed piece of...

Rajasthan's Jatawali village hosts a debate on census showing how rural India badly needs state help. An old couple in Jatavali village in Choumu tehsil of Jaipur were having an early lunch at noon with their daughter. The man had a roti and a large chunk of crumpled baati (baked wheat balls) and a fairly large bowl of dal. He was making little cakes of baati, dipping them in the dal...