-Outlook In MP’s Bundelkhand region, a sarpanch-babu nexus means NREGA benefits dry up for the poor The Paper Trail How social sector cuts are playing out in one of India’s poorest parts     For the first time ever, in 2014, Rs 1,000 cr, of a sanctioned Rs 4,000 cr budget for NREGA, not given to MP     In 2015, only a small part of the budget released for two months. NREGA top officials say funds always...

-The Hindu The Modi government is determined to dismantle the two-pronged welfare paradigm. It is now an established fact that one area where the Narendra Modi administration has acted with a sense of purpose, urgency and resolve is in slashing social expenditure. Be it education, health, agriculture, livelihood security, food security, panchayati raj institutions, drinking water or the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes sub-plan, central government funds earmarked for social protection have been cut. The...

-The Indian Express Modi government has damaged the rights-based legislative framework without spelling out what will replace it. No  one in the last two decades has come to power with greater euphoria than the Narendra Modi sarkar. It has taken less than a year for that euphoria to recede and change to disappointment. There are sufficient reasons for this change. The celebrations of the first year in office of  this government are in sharp...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Condemned prisoners also have a right to dignity, the Supreme Court has said holding that execution of death sentence cannot be carried out in an arbitrary, hurried and secret manner without allowing death row convicts to exhaust all legal remedies and meet family members. "Right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution does not end with the confirmation of the death sentence. Even in cases...

-The Hindu The growth-at-all-cost mantra has left a vast majority of people impoverished. If the first year of the BJP government is any indication, its five-year stint may turn out to be the worst period for India’s environment and ecosystem-dependent people since the 1980s. This is saying a lot, given that none of the previous governments has been particularly sensitive to issues of fresh air and water, productive soil, healthy forests and grasslands....