-The Hindu In households with a limited food budget, or where there is no refrigerator to store leftover food, the person who eats last very often gets less or lower quality food India has a major child malnutrition problem. The Rapid Survey on Children (2012-13) found that about 4 in 10 children are stunted. On average, children who are stunted do less well in school, earn less, and die sooner than children...

-TheGuardian.com Hardworking women in India care for family members, cook, clean, garden, sew and farm without getting paid. When will official statistics recognise this? Women’s participation in work is an indicator of their status in a society. Paid work offers more opportunities for women’s agency, mobility and empowerment, and it usually leads to greater social recognition of the work that women do, whether paid or unpaid. Where women’s work participation rates are relatively...

-The Indian Express Real wages have risen across India in the past two decades, but the increase has been especially marked among rural unskilled workers. Three drivers — falling rural female labour force participation, a construction boom, and favourable agricultural terms of trade — help explain why unskilled rural workers fared better than their urban counterparts or workers with more education. Going forward, in the light of lower agricultural prices and...

-Down to Earth Blog MGNREGA has been successful in Madhya Pradesh. Can the scheme also provide solutions for the current drought in the region? Sevanti Bai (45) lives alone in a village in Madhya Pradesh. Her husband died fifteen years ago, owing to health complications. With no land or children to depend on, she fends for herself by engaging in ‘rojgaar guarantee, as the locals call the scheme. MGNREGA, she says, has...

-The Hindu Business Line Ten years on, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act endures because it provides the poor a political voice February 2016 marks a decade since India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 (NREGA) came into force. NREGA is both revolutionary and modest; it promises every rural household one hundred days of employment annually on public-works projects, but the labour is taxing and pays minimum wage, at best. Many charges have...