-The Hindu Every effort needs to be made to reform MGNREGA, as it has been both a major success and a huge failure. The best way for this is to study carefully the conditions that made it a success and also to undertake a diagnostics of its failures An impression has gained ground in recent weeks that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Centre is inimical to the Mahatma Gandhi...

-The Business Standard Against nodal ministry's protest, under PMO guidance, MoEF prepares to largely remove need for gram sabha agreement to use or give away forest land The central government is set to dilute the rights of tribals and other forest-dwelling communities, doing away with the present legal need for their consent while handing over their forest land to industry in large parts of the country. Business Standard has reviewed documents that detail...

-The Telegraph The National Democratic Alliance government is planning to scrap the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. The chief minister of Rajasthan, Vasundhara Raje, had already asked for the employment programme of the MGNREGA under which the state was obliged to provide employment on demand (failing which an unemployment allowance of a specified amount had to be paid), to be downgraded to a mere "food-for-work" programme, where the state...

-Deccan Herald In accordance with a new agroecology initiative within the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, by using the agroecological methods, small farmers are key to feeding the world, Nafeez Ahmed notes. Modern industrial agricultural methods can no longer feed the world, due to the impacts of overlapping environmental and ecological crises linked to land, water and resource availability. The stark warning comes from the new United Nations Special Rapporteur on the...

-BBC It's a riot of colours - yellow marigolds and bright pink roses spread out in the sun. But the people spreading the joy this festive season cannot see it themselves - they are all visually challenged. They take in tonnes of flower waste produced by temples and hotels in Delhi and turn it into organic skin-friendly colours for Hindu festivals. The Society for Child Development, which runs this programme, says the process does...