-The Deccan Chronicle   As the year 2011 comes to an end, the ministry of rural development is yet to find answers to slippage within the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). However, Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh gave a new approach by unveiling new policies for the Naxal-affected areas. Taking charge of the ministry later in the middle of the year, Mr Ramesh highlighted that the demand for the job...

While some may view the food security Bill as the instrument of combating poverty, this distinction belongs to the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, the flagship anti-poverty programme of the United Progressive Alliance government. The proponents of the food security Bill at the National Advisory Council have promoted it as the instrument of fighting widespread and rising hunger, instead. But what is the empirical basis of the claims of widespread and...

-The Economic Times   Rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to re-consider the idea of creating a new category under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, for the rural employment scheme. He has said that the revisit can be done even as the special leave petition (SLP) process moves forward. The Centre has already decided to file a SLP in the Supreme Court against the Karnataka HC's s...

The implementation of the ‘100 days work' scheme in West Bengal had become a poll issue during the last parliamentary and assembly elections as had some other Centrally-funded rural development projects. But despite a change in government in the State, little seems to have changed on that front ultimately leading to a somewhat hurried shunting out of a Minister from his Department. The decision taken by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to...

Most of the respondents in Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Kerala prefer an effective PDS to cash transfer. THE survey of the public distribution system (PDS) in nine States, of which I was a part in Himachal Pradesh (Sirmaur district), Uttar Pradesh (Jaunpur district) and Kerala (Wayanad district), came as an eye-opener to me on many counts. If Himachal Pradesh stood out for the innocence of its people, Uttar Pradesh...