-GRIST Media If hard work and enterprise inevitably made you prosperous, every rural woman would be a millionaire. These women have borne the brunt of the radical, often brutal transformation of rural India these past two decades. Our writers examine the hardships they continue to face as well as their remarkable vision to solve some of the greatest problems of our times such as food security, environmental justice and developing a...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Money power seems to have emerged the winner again in this round of Haryana assembly Elections with an overwhelming 83% of the winning candidates part of the crorepati club. About 75 of the 90 newly elected MLAs in Haryana are crorepatis with BJP leading the pack. Forty of its legislators boast of assets in excess of Rs 1 crore. Though the total number of criminal netas...

-Livemint A study shows there has been considerable upward mobility among both the poor and vulnerable sections of the population One of the reasons for the drubbing given to the Congress in the recent national and state Elections is the disenchantment of the so-called neo middle class with its policies. A recent World Bank paper (Addressing Inequality in South Asia by Martin Rama, Tara Béteille, Yue Li, Pradeep K. Mitra and John...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Union rural development ministry today highlighted the findings of select studies to defend its plan to modify the rural job guarantee scheme and answer critics who have accused it of trying to dilute the programme. A ministry note that cited these studies said the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) needed reforms to increase the creation of productive and durable assets and reduce politics and...

-The Indian Express Moves to dilute labour-material ratio in MGNREGA and focus exclusively on select backward blocks will adversely impact rural poor. Before the general Elections, free-market fundamentalists had lobbied fiercely to reshape so-called wasteful social-sector expenditures. Primary among their targets was the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), which, according to them, should become an unconditional cash transfer scheme. Post-Elections, the late Gopinath Munde's espousal of the MGNREGA went...