-PTI WASHINGTON: India's rural employment guarantee programme MNREGA has been ranked as the world's largest public works programme, providing social security net to almost 15 per cent of the country's population, World Bank has said. India is among the five middle-income countries running the world's largest social safety net programmes, said a World Bank Group's report 'The State of Social Safety Nets 2015'. "The world's five largest social safety net programmes are all...

-The Hindu Although the SECC’s objectives are not likely to be met, it is a big step towards providing accurate information on the well-being of the people. The release of data for rural households from the Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) is only the latest step in India’s tortured history of trying to count its poor. The idea behind the SECC was technocratic. Commissioned by the United Progressive Alliance in 2011,...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday said the direct transfer of cooking gas subsidies into the bank accounts of users will help the government cut its subsidy bill by around Rs 12,700 crore, or around a quarter of the funds spent last year. The minister used the successful transition to direct benefit transfer (DBT) system to argue for extending the scheme to other subsidies, something that...

-IPSNews.net NEW DELHI: Chottey Lal, 43, a daily wage labourer at a construction site in NOIDA, a township in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, is a beleaguered man. After a gruelling 12-hour daily shift at the dusty location, he and his wife Subha make barely enough to feed a family of seven. Nor is the couple ever able to procure the subsidized rations they are legally entitled to, under a...

-Livemint.com Starting September, govt will usher in direct Cash transfers to Aadhaar-linked bank accounts of beneficiaries in Puducherry, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli New Delhi: The government has decided to bite the bullet on public distribution system (PDS) reforms. Starting September, it will usher in direct Cash transfers to the Aadhaar-linked bank accounts of beneficiaries in Puducherry, Chandigarh and Dadra and Nagar Haveli. In Daman and Diu, PDS benefits will be provided...