-Scroll.in Inability of local officials and infrastructure to cope with the complex technologies driving the scheme could be leaving lakhs of workers unpaid. This year’s Economic Survey lists several “improvements” in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act brought about since 2014-’15. Mostly, these “improvements” are technological initiatives – greater convergence with other programmes, “geo-tagging” of MNREGA assets. They have not made a difference on two of the stated purposes – timely...

-Scroll.in BJP chief’s claim that growth rate declined due to change in the methodology doesn’t hold much water. Data released on August 31 marked the sixth straight quarter of slowing growth for the Indian economy as the gross domestic product growth rate slipped to 5.7% in the first quarter of the current financial year. It was a sharp decline from 7.9% growth seen in the same quarter last year. Attempting to explain the...

-Scroll.in RTI documents show that Niti Aayog largely worked with World Bank and top private healthcare industry. The Niti Aayog’s blueprint to increase the role of private hospitals in treating non-communicable diseases in urban India by handing district hospitals over to the private sector on 30-year leases was built largely on a template provided by the World Bank. The template was fine-tuned in close coordination with top private healthcare industry representatives. State...

-The Hindu An immediate stimulus is needed to regain the momentum to get India back to 8% growth The government’s move this past week to publish economic data for the April to June quarter of this year needs a look. The real growth of GDP, i.e. after removing the impact of inflation, was only 5.7%, much lower than expected. For the past six consecutive quarters, the growth rate has gone down steadily,...

-The Indian Express The failure of populist rural credit schemes stems primarily from poor understanding of farm indebtedness in the first place. From the 1970s, a lot of private investment in tube-well irrigation, farm mechanisation and allied agricultural activities took place with bank credit support. After the establishment of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) in 1982, institutional credit flows not only accelerated, but also exhibited diversification to fund livestock...