-TheWire.in This lockdown hunger is not the only worry. Post-COVID, access to safe and nutritious foods would be uncertain if adequate policy measures are not taken. The COVID-19 pandemic has further worsened India’s hunger and malnutrition woes, more so for the millions of informal workers, on their way back home or struggling to meet two ends in their urBan and rural homes. Their embedded informality over labour, land and housing tenure has...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Civil society praises Centre’s draft order Banning 27 pesticides -Vineet Kumar
-Down to Earth The pesticides in question continue to be used in India, but are already Banned, restricted or withdrawn in other countries Several experts underscored the ill effects of using chemicals excessively in agriculture and stressed on ecologically sound alternatives while backing a recent government draft order to prohibit a bunch of pesticides. Civil society members, citing risks, threats and damage from 27 pesticides, came out in support of a May 14,...
More »Time to act on MGNREGA -Ankita Aggarwal and Anmol Somanchi
-The Indian Express Covid-related crisis offers NDA government opportunity to increase work days, entitlements under the employment guarantee scheme. In a recent article (‘Credit where it isn’t due’, IE, June 10), Union Minister for Rural Development Narendra Singh Tomar described the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) as a “failing scheme” before 2014. MGNREGA under the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government was by no means perfect, but when the National...
More »Can raising the approved labour budget from 280.76 crore person-days to 306.6 crore person-days help the unskilled returnee migrants who prefer MGNREGA to Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan?
Although social activists and concerned economists demanded at least Rs. 1 lakh crore to be earmarked in favour of the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the Finance Minister in her budget speech on 1st February allocated only Rs.61,500 crore to it for the financial year 2020-21. As compared to the fund spent on MGNREGA in 2019-20 (i.e. revised estimate of Rs.71,001.81 crore), the amount set aside for the...
More »COVID-19 rural crisis: Why MGNREGA needs a harder push -Debmalya Nandy
-Down to Earth MGNREGA workers across the country on June 29 staged peaceful demonstration, raised demands for higher benefits and wages The nationwide lockdown imposed to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) left Mahatma Gandhi Employment Guarantee Act 2005 (MGNREGA) workers in the lurch. Thousands such workers, facing an economic crisis, have demanded an increase in the annual guarantee of work to 200 days per person. The workers from across...
More »