-Down to Earth The BJP-led government's change of heart for big-ticket rural programmes says a lot about its dwindling political fortune India's current political season has a nostalgic tint. Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi has apparently met party leaders to kickstart a campaign against the National Democratic Alliance’s (NDA’S) overt efforts to softly kill the erstwhile government’s flagship programmes. Particularly, the NDA government’s political decisions to not pursue the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural...

-Ideas for India MNREGA – the largest public works programme in the world – completed 10 years this month. In this article, Inayat Anaita Sabhikhi, Project Officer, United Nations Development Programme, at the Ministry of Rural Development, summarises evidence on MNREGA from four recent reports of international and national organisations. She contends that MNREGA’s high global rankings among social security programmes and the positive evidence on its impact should boost efforts...

-Deccan Herald Just recall the scene in parliament when the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act was passed in 2005. In Lok Sabha, Speaker Somnath Chatterjee put forth the motion – “Those in favour, say aye” – a unanimous chorus rose from the packed Lok Sabha. “Those against, say no,” – there was dead silence. “I think the ayes have it!” he said – and a seminal, landmark legislation became a reality. As then...

-The Asian Age Is the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) a “living monument” of the failure of the economic policies of the Indian National Congress which has ruled the country for all but roughly 14 years since August 1947? Or is it that the MGNREGA, a law enacted a decade ago which seeks to implement the world’s biggest and most ambitious job creating scheme, one of the few...

-The Indian Express Nine children from anganwadi No. 159, which had only Dalit children, have been shifted to No. 160, while 19 children from the Thakore, Patel and Rawal communities in No. 160 have now gone to No. 159. Hajipur (Patan): Three months after The Indian Express reported about a separate anganwadi for Dalit children in Gujarat’s Patan district, the state government has taken corrective steps. Nine children from anganwadi No. 159,...