-Live Mint Andhra Pradesh's experience with social audits holds important lessons for the Congress's empowerment agenda At the heart of the Congress party's narrative on the rights-based welfare state is the idea that rights laws, to quote Sonia Gandhi, "put pressure on the executive to be more responsive and accountable" and in doing so bring about an "empowerment revolution". To enable this revolution, rights laws have had built into them procedural...

-The Hindu     While the stagnation in women's ability to control their own fate is disappointing, some of the other gender indicators are downright alarming On International Women's Day, the Election Commission of India held a special campaign to bring women voters to the polls. Although men and women vote at a more or less similar rate in State elections, women are 6-8 percentage points behind in the Lok Sabha elections where national...

-The United Nations The United Nations agricultural agency today launched a new database which gathers under one roof previously scattered information about land cover - how much land is covered by croplands, trees, forests, or bare soils - crucial to establishing a good global understanding of the physical characteristics of the Earth's surface. "A strong understanding of our planet's land cover is essential to promoting sustainable land resources management - including agricultural...

-The Indian Express The average days of employment per household under the MNREGS have been less than 50 a year. Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi again touted the MNREGS scheme as one of the UPA government's leading achievements, in his interview to PTI on Sunday. However, Ministry of Rural Development data shows that households have not got work for even half of the mandated 100 days annually since the flagship rural job guarantee...

-Outlook As subsidies for the poor continue to be under attack, a ground-up report from 10-states shows how well welfare schemes have worked over the last 10 years. Ahead of Elections 2014, rights-based welfare schemes are under attack. To those who argue ‘Dolenomics' doesn't work, a survey of five schemes in 10 states shows that the Rs 1,68,478 crore annually the nation spends is making a real and tangible difference on...