-The Telegraph Labour payments under NREGA will continue to be less than minimum wages for agricultural Labourers in four states, including Bengal, despite a recent rate revision in the rural job scheme. Rural development minister Jairam Ramesh today tabled a statement in the Rajya Sabha on the revised wages that will take effect from next month. Under the new NREGA rates, Labourers in all states stand to gain, except those in Kerala, Bengal,...

-Economic and Political Weekly Before I take issue with some of the points made in the NIPFP response to this comment, it may be useful to recapitulate a few points on which there appears to be agreement: (1) Aadhaar-integration can resolve only certain types of leakages, for which reliable data is unavailable; this was not adequately accounted for in the cost-benefit exercise; (2) the NIPFP study has a fragile basis (in...

-The Indian Express Samelia: Narayan Singh listens with rapt attention as social activist Shankar Singh urges villagers in remote Samelia in Rajasthan’s Rajsamand district to fight for their rights. Convinced that his voice would count, Narayan signs up to go to Jantar Mantar in Delhi to protest with 25,000 villagers, urban poor, rag pickers, daily-wage Labourers to press for universalisation and enhancement of old-age pension. The issue concerns countless elderly poor who...

-The Economic Times The government plans to revive cultivation of crops that make Punjab's iconic "makki ki roti and sarson ka saag" -- maize and mustard -- along with horticulture and fodder to breathe life into the stressed soil and the rapidly depleting water table in the green-revolution state. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is pushing hard for crop diversification in Punjab and has appointed an inter-ministerial panel on crop diversification led by Agriculture...

-The Hindustan Times Indore: After Jal Satyagraha (insistence on truth with water) and hunger strike, scores of striking adhyapaks (teachers having non-permanent jobs) in Shajapur district climbed on trees and raised slogans against the Madhya Pradesh government for not fulfilling its promises. Earlier, on Saturday over 25 teachers sat on a Jal Satyagraha to press their demands for ‘equal work, equal pay’ as well as all the benefits that their regular counterparts...