-Newsclick.in A combination of fund squeeze and political aversion has deprived lakhs of people from getting MGNREGS work, even though wages are very low. As the job crisis rages unabated across the country, demand for work under the rural jobs guarantee programme (MGNREGS – Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) has risen dramatically in the past few years. In Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, the two big states where polling for Assembly...

-Networkideas.org In recent times, the clamour for formalising economic activity, or shrinking its unorganised component and expanding the organised, has been heard from diverse sources. There are those who want formalisation to occur because the unorganised sector is seen as being largely outside the direct and indirect tax net, depriving the government of much needed resources. Hence, for example, one feature seen as favouring the Goods and Services Tax regime is...

-The Hindu Bhuira's women are coping with the higher workload by creating vastly more flexible family and community structures. And they are simultaneously pushing towards modernity much faster than their neighbours. Everyone in the village sneaks a glance when Upasana Kumari drives her White Maruti 800 to work. “Driving a car is intoxicating,” says Kumari. A winding, muddy, single lane road that starts from the edge of the hillock where Kumari’s house...

-TheWire.in Family members of slain Kedar Singh Jindan, along with several locals and activists, have demanded a CBI probe into the matter. New Delhi: Even as the Centre dithers on implementing the Whistleblowers Protection Act, which was passed four years ago to protect anyone who exposes alleged wrongdoing in government bodies, another name has been added to the growing list of RTI activists who have been killed for raising disturbing questions. The...

-Newsclick.in In the latest govt. release of EPF and ESI numbers, the chaos in industry is revealed – not job situation. What was started last year as a trial balloon has now become a joke, after getting sanctified by everybody in the govt., from PM Modi downwards. Yesterday, the govt. released new numbers on how many people enrolled in three of its social security schemes, provident fund (EPF), employees health insurance (ESI)...