-The Indian Express The Aadhaar judgment divides the people of this country into those receiving state assistance, and others. The former will get socio-economic rights if they do as they are asked to do. Privacy is a luxury they can ill afford. The signs were there from the beginning. The poor were part of the marketing strategy for promoting a project that would require people to enrol in a database that...

-Livemint.com Merely putting the labour component of other projects in MGNREGA may not lead to any value addition There are several studies and reports that clearly show that the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) has accomplished its objectives to a large extent. Initially, this government derided the programme as some kind of a dole—but it later acknowledged its role in rural development, if reluctantly. The chief ministers’ council in...

-Livemint.com Rural development secretary Amarjeet Sinha on how MGNREGS has evolved since 2006 to result in income, acreage, water tables, productivity and fodder availability Agrarian distress and rural distress are terms used interchangeably, but the rural economy today is very different from what it was many years ago, given the diversification of rural incomes and hence incorrect to think one means the other, says Amarjeet Sinha, secretary, ministry of rural development. In...

-TheWire.in Mexican economist David Barkin on India's neoliberal economics, growing inequalities, agrarian distress and more. David Barkin is Professor of Economics at the Metropolitan Autonomous University in Mexico City. He received his doctorate in economics from Yale University and was awarded the National Prize in Political Economics in 1979 for his analysis of inflation in Mexico. His research has focused on the development of an alternative to the capitalist economic model. In an...

-TheWire.in From rotten vegetables to frogs, the MDM in Uttar Pradesh has featured several unlikely ingredients. In a village in Chitrakoot district, while insects were the latest buzz, a severe dose of apathy appears to be the real cause of alarm. Chitrakoot, Uttar Pradesh: The website of the Uttar Pradesh Mid-Day Meal Authority (MDMA) proudly boasts of having won a gold trophy in “e-governance” for its innovative use of technology in...