In the recent week, the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) has dealt three major, concerted blows to the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA): (1) The Budget allocation for NREGA was reduced to just Rs 60,000 crore in 2023-24 (less than Rs 50,000 crore if we deduct wage arrears from 2022-23). This makes this year’s allocation the lowest as a proportion of GDP (0.2%) in the history of the programme. (2) The...
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How will Indian Cities Fare if a Turkey-like Earthquake Strikes the Subcontinent?
On 6 February, 2023 Southern Turkey and the adjoining areas in Syria were hit by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake followed by several aftershocks. The tremors have flattened buildings and destroyed roads and other infrastructure. At least 35,000 casualties (UPDATE) have occurred across Turkey and Syria, with the vast majority being in the former nation. A news report cited the Turkish environment minister saying that 24,921 buildings across the region had collapsed. What...
More »Bill to reform insurance sector may come in monsoon session - Subhash Narayan
The draft bill allows insurance companies the freedom to sell different financial products Mint The government is likely to introduce the Insurance Laws (Amendment) Bill 2022 in the monsoon session of Parliament to bring deep reforms in the insurance sector, including a provision for composite insurance licence and flexibility in entry barriers, two people aware of the development said. According to them, stakeholder consultation on the draft bill is expected to be...
More »How State Family Database Projects Pose Dangers Of In-Depth Citizen Profiling And Exclusion - Sarasvati NT
Medianama The Tamil Nadu e-Governance Agency (TNeGA) floated a second tender in December 2022 for implementation and maintenance of a Master Data Management and de- duplication tool for a State Family Database (SFDB) project. The objective is to assign the ‘Makkal ID’— a unique identification number already allotted to the state’s seven crore residents— to different records across departments. The SFDB is projected to be the “single source of truth” of all...
More »The Centre has not paid MGNREGA wages in Bengal for a year - Nachiket Deuskar
- Scroll.in The right to work has been suspended in the state as a result of a political battle over upcoming elections. People working under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in West Bengal have not been paid their wages for more than a year now with the Union government stopping the payment of funds. Bengal is the only state impacted by this stoppage, Scroll.in reports. MGNREGA is a national...
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