The ministry of rural development has decided to challenge a Karnataka high court order that directed the government to pay minimum wages to MG-NREGA workers. The court order had led to a tussle within the government over whether the order should be challenged or not. While rural development minister Jairam Ramesh, who is monitoring the UPA flagship aam-admi scheme, spoke against challenging the order, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee advised him to...

-The Hindu   The government on Tuesday said it would soon undertake a survey of the number of manual scavenger in the country so that they could get benefits of various schemes meant for them. Replying to a calling attention notice on need to take adequate safety measures to protect the lives of ‘safai karmacharis' by Arjun Ram Meghwal in the Lok Sabha, Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Mukul Wasnik said the Centre...

-India Education Diary   Top-level academics from India and abroad, policy makers and education experts will unfold their experiences and strategies for an effective implementation of the historic Right to Education (RTE) Act and explore and identify critical issues in the education sector at a national conference that gets under way here on Wednesday (Dec. 21). The day-long conference, titled 'Catalysing Education for All: Intention, Innovation, and Implementation', is being organized by...

An inconvenient truth? Or yet another case of shoddy data collection by state agencies? The government is scrambling to prove that it is the latter, after data on the UPA's flagship poverty alleviation programme shows that it may not be reaching its intended beneficiaries, those classified in official-speak as below the poverty line (BPL). A recent note circulated to all state departments by the rural development ministry revealed that only...

The central government claims that allowing foreign direct investment into India’s retail sector will benefit small farmers, expand employment and lower food inflation. What has been the experience in India with organised retail so far and what has been the global experience with FDI? Sukhpal Singh (sukhpal@iegindia.org) is currently at the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi. After being under relentless attack for a week, the United Progressiv Alliance government was forced to...