The question raises fundamental issues about the MGNREGA’s centralised template and poor delivery mechanism, but it is important to provide a legal basis to its wage structure to protect it against inflation. We need to remember that the way the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) was originally conceived, wages were never meant to be equal to the minimum wages; they should have been lower. This is because the...

Alleging that the UP government had failed to provide the prescribed 23% quota to scheduled castes in government services, chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) PL Punia claimed it was also misutilising the funds meant for the dalit. Talking to media on Monday evening, Punia said as per the ratio of the scheduled castes in the total population of the state, a provision had been made to...

Further political unrest in Andhra Pradesh may lead to jobs and investment being moved out of the state, industry bodies have warned amid the Telangana tension. “The politicians should realise that companies have the option to move jobs elsewhere,” Som Mittal, president of software industry body Nasscom, said at the weekend. He cited how jobs were moved out of Visakhapatnam to Chennai and Pune because of the counter-Telangana protests in 2009. “We have...

Microcredit is losing its halo in many developing countries. Microcredit was once extolled by world leaders like Bill Clinton and Tony Blair as a powerful tool that could help eliminate poverty, through loans as small as $50 to cowherds, basket weavers and other poor people for starting or expanding businesses. But now microloans have prompted political hostility in Bangladesh, India, Nicaragua and other developing countries. In December, the prime minister of...

It will be tabled in the budget session of Parliament: Kharge Manmohan's nod obtained for amendment 17 amendments to impose higher penalties In a move that will benefit 55 lakh workers in the mining sector in the country, the Union Labour and Employment Ministry is amending the National Mines Act 1952. The Amendment Bill would be tabled during the budget session of Parliament. Announcing this at a press conference at the Karnataka Pradesh Congress...