-TheWire.in Most technocratic interventions introduced in MGNREGA appear to be designed to aid administrators rather than for actually helping workers. In his 2017-18 Budget speech, finance minister Arun Jaitley asserted with great conviction that the ruling dispensation’s “initiative to geo-tag all MGNREGA assets” to put them “in public domain has established greater transparency”. In 2016-17, the rural development ministry started an initiative called ‘GeoMGNREGA’, under which it was proposed that all assets created under...

-The Hindu The State, in an affidavit perused by Supreme Court on Friday, said it received information about the causes of farmers' deaths through Reports collected from Collectors. The Tamil Nadu government on Friday blamed heart attacks, illness, and “in certain cases”, suicides for deaths of its farmers reeling under severe drought. The State, in an affidavit perused by the Supreme Court on Friday, said it had received information about the causes of...

-The Hindu Business Line Frowns on India’s IP laws; New Delhi unfazed, says laws are TRIPS-compliant New Delhi: Expressing its disappointment with India for not making adequate changes in its IP laws and regulations despite announcing its National IPR policy last year, the US Trade Representative’s (USTR) office has once again placed the country in the ‘priority watch’ list in this year’s edition of the Special 301 report. “Almost a year after the...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The government has invoked special powers under the law to prohibit stent makers from withdrawing their products from the market for the next six months. Amid Reports that several manufacturers, including Abbott and Medtronic, are seeking to withdraw premium, high-priced stents from the Indian market on account of the price cap imposed by National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA), the government has directed companies to maintain production,...

-Frontline.in The British government, on the basis of an 1891 report on the subhuman living conditions of “Pariahs” by James H.A. Tremenheere, Acting Collector of Chengleput, assigned 12 lakh acres of land for distribution to the “depressed classes” of the Madras Presidency to empower them socially and economically. But more than 100 years later, much of this land is in the possession of non-Dalits, and the struggle to reclaim them has...