-IndiaSpend.com The fruits of a people’s movement and the world’s largest anti-poverty public works, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) last year provided employment to 22% of all rural homes. At its peak five years ago, it was a lifeline for 55 million, or one in every three rural homes. But it has yet to expand to its full potential. Up to 70% of interested poor households did not receive any NREGA...

-The Indian Express We have turned our back to the intense food and drinking water distress across states India has transformed spectacularly in innumerable ways in the last two decades. One of the least noted changes is in the way the country — governments, the press and people — respond to drought and food scarcities. Back in the late-1980s, many states across India were reeling under back-to-back droughts for three consecutive years, not...

-Hindustan Times Ranchi: Green cover and wildlife population in Jharkhand’s sanctuaries are under threat from unchecked stone quarries, tree felling and construction work in the buffer zones of the wildlife reserves in the state. With the state government yet to send proposals to the Centre to declare 10 of the 11 wildlife sanctuaries as ecologically sensitive zones (ESZs), the threat has increased, say conversationalists and wildlife experts. Until now, only the Dalma wildlife...

-The Hindu The health sector typifies the hands-off policy of the government in areas that impact welfare and livelihoods. An air of anticipation and optimism greeted the formation and installation of the new government in 2014. A widely held view was that it would be much more decisive than the previous dispensation in providing some direction to public policy. Twenty months have passed and the initial sense of optimism has been replaced...

-Hindustan Times Raipur: In Kawardha, the home district of Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh, a woman sarpanch has decided to delegate all her responsibilities to her nephew, citing her busy household routine as the reason. In an affidavit, sarpanch Santoshi Bai has handed over her powers to nephew Kaushal Nishad, saying she remains too engrossed in her household work. “At home, I am preoccupied with work and that diverts my attention from...