-Governance Now Only 20 percent wage payments are time bound under NREGA, says a new study A new research on the implementation of national rural employment guarantee law (NREGA) disputes the way central government measures and offers the delay in compensation to workers. A group of three independent researchers claim that the figures in the NREGA management information system (MIS) have been manipulated to only partially calculate the duration of wage...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday outlined a three-tier, graded approach to the question whether privacy is a fundamental right by examining the issue through its intimate, private and public aspects even as it reserved its verdict in the case. Prior to completion of the two-week-long hearing that attracted arguments for and against conferring fundamental right status to privacy but which saw all parties accepting its intrinsic...

-The Indian Express Aadhaar doesn’t empower people, only the state Ironically, in the week that the UIDAI revealed its draconian face, serving a legal notice to those who exposed flaws in the Aadhaar eco-system, Ajay Pandey (CEO, UIDAI), wrote, “The critics tend to forget that Aadhaar empowers the people, not the state” (‘Criticisms Without Aadhaar’, IE, May 13). However, government data reveals that Pandey is wrong to believe that “Aadhaar empowers...

-The Hindu Greater data availability, especially on labour markets, needed to better gauge social impact of such policies The World Bank has said the social impact of demonetisation may have been greater as the informal economy was likely to have been hit especially hard. However, the Bank said the impact of demonetisation on the informal economy was difficult to measure and greater data availability, especially on labour markets, is needed to...

-The Hindu Business Line The solution lies in better prices for produce, generating non-farm income, and reducing costs of farming After the Yogi Adityanath government waived farm loans of about ?36,000 crore for UP farmers, pressure has mounted on other States to follow suit. But contrary to common belief, debt waivers aside from possibly guaranteeing electoral victory, do little to alleviate the plight of farmers. Neither do they help kick-start the rural...