Parliament must use budget session to discuss key pending bills The budget session of Parliament begins today. The last few sessions have been characterised by disruptions and consequent loss of productive time. To see one indicator, the 15th Lok Sabha, half-way through its term, has lost 30 per cent of scheduled time — the worst ever. As a result, many important bills have been pending. It is to be seen whether...

Women farmers suffer gross bias a global meet will look to change this Nearly half of the agricultural work is handled by women in developing countries and India is no exception. Yet, strategies for the development of agriculture are directed primarily at men. Barely five per cent of the extension efforts and resources are targeted at farm women. This failing, predictably, costs a good amount owing to loss of a part...

India’s decision-makers seem to find it difficult to see that there are children in the country. Being unable to see them, they are unable to perceive that they are hungry. In an age when we are able to use euphemisms like ‘under-nutrition’, this is perhaps not surprising. But it is disgraceful none the less.   This country has a large population of children. Fortyone per cent of its total numbers. The national...

Kanak Dixit: We have with us Aruna Roy, from Devdungri village in Rajasthan, who has, among other things, been able to take the Right to Information (RTI) from janasunuwais, or public hearings at the village level, all the way to national legislation that encompasses all of India. It is a movement that is truly global in scale. Aruna, a question that has been troubling me quite a bit in the context...

  MGNREGA, which entitles millions of workers enrolled under it to at least Rs 100 a day for 100 days of work in a year, is undergoing an overhaul based on a set of recommendations of a committee headed by the Planning Commission member Mihir Shah.   Encapsulated in The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 - Operational Guidelines 2012 in what is being called “MGNREGA 2.0”, the recommendations aim for...