The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, UPA’s flagship aam admi scheme, turns five on Wednesday. However, more than 30% of the rural India working under the right-to-work act would continue to receive wages below the guaranteed minimum as per the minimum wages act. On January 14, the ministry of rural development issued a Notification revising the wage rates under the MNREGA from Rs 100 per day to between...

The Planning Commission has said that states will have to bear the additional burden if the minimum wages notified by them are higher than that fixed by the Centre for work under the employment guarantee Act. In the case of rich "states that can afford very high minimum wages, the central government reimbursement will be limited", Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia told reporters. For a state where minimum wages are...

Allotment of gram sabha land to private persons illegal Ponds, tanks which served communities for years encroached upon Taking a serious view of illegal and unauthorised encroachments on government poromboke land, the Supreme Court has directed all the State governments to prepare schemes for eviction of such occupants of gram sabha/panchayat/poromboke/shamlat land and restore them to the gram sabha/panchayat for the common use of villagers. A Bench of Justices Markandey Katju and Gyan...

A Delhi court Tuesday ordered deployment of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) at Mirchpur village in Haryana to protect the witnesses till they record their testimonies in the case relating to an attack on Dalits there in 2010, which led to the death of two community members. Special Judge (Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribal Act) Kamini Lau said: 'I now direct that CRPF deployment at village Mirchpur should be made preferably near the...

A recent newspaper report noted that the Union Government had gazetted the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification 2011 and received strong criticism from organisations that work for protecting coastal ecosystems and fight for the rights and welfare of fisherfolk. About 20 organisations working in the field of protecting fishermen's rights and lawyers backing them have taken strong exception to the Notification. This is on the ground that the new Notification,...