-The Indian Express The first nine months of the new BJP government has only underscored its anti-poor, anti-rural image. The substantive and substantial changes in rural development have been restrictive in nature. The new government has worked to undermine the legal and financial framework of MGNREGA, substantially weakened the provisions of the land acquisition act through an ordinance and, through year-end budget cuts, they have undermined almost every social sector programme, reportedly...

-The Hindu Business Line The rural job guarantee scheme is threatened by the undermining of its driving force, demand-driven work Is the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) suffering a midlife crisis or are we staring at its death? From a budget of ₹401 billion in 2010-11, it has plummeted to ₹330 billion in 2013-14. Given the much higher wages currently offered to workers, it has taken a serious hit. The...

-The Times of India AURANGABAD: With Marathwada being most affected by drought and near-total loss of crops forcing more than 500 farmers to commit suicide during the past one year, noted economist and former member of Maharashtra State Planning Board, H M Desarda, has suggested to the state government that there is immediate need to return to the low external input sustainable agriculture (LEISA), which alone can rescue farmers from the...

-Livemint.com Some 50,000 women in India died during childbirth and from pregnancy-related complications in 2013, according to estimates by United Nations agencies Melbourne/Mumbai: Sita Devi was in labour when her family paid the day's first bribe. The wife of Shivvaran Pal, a subsistence farmer whom she'd married at 15, Sita worked on their land and earned a monthly wage of Rs.1,000, about $16, cooking school lunches. By 23, she had three daughters...

-Livemint.com Government set to fight to remove curbs on future food programmes while negotiating a permanent solution at WTO New Delhi: Emboldened by its success in making the interim solution on food stockholding under the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO) open ended, India will put forth a proposal to do away with the restrictions imposed on a country's food programme under the Bali agreement. Strict disclosure norms and the provision that a...