-The Hindu 96% of annual allocation exhausted. The Centre is on the verge of running out of funds for the crucial Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme. More than 96% of the allocated money has already been spent or is needed to pay pending dues, with less than Rs.2,500 crore left to sustain the scheme for the next two months. Fifteen States are already in the red. According to the scheme’s...
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Amid complaints, farmer rights body to revise guidelines -PRIscilla Jebaraj
-The Hindu PepsiCo cited the FAQ section to justify cases filed by it. A document which food and beverages giant PepsiCo India cited to support its charges against Gujarat potato farmers earlier this year is being revised by the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers Rights Authority (PPV&FRA), following complaints from major farmers groups. The Frequently Asked Questions or FAQ document had claimed that “only small and marginal farmers involved in subsistence farming”...
More »Who is a farmer? Government has no clear definition -PRIscilla Jebaraj
-The Hindu Such an ambiguity has serious implications for the design and beneficiaries of schemes meant to help them Who is a farmer? What is the government’s definition of a farmer and how many farmers are there in India by that definition? Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar failed to answer that question when it was asked in Parliament last week. The government’s ambiguity has serious implications for the design and beneficiaries of the...
More »BJP wanted electoral bonds without serial numbers -PRIscilla Jebaraj
-The Hindu The party recommended that electoral bonds should be issued without any serial number or identification marks. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had pitched for greater anonymity for donors of electoral bonds, according to a letter sent by party general secretary Bhupendra Yadav to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in August 2017 when the scheme was being drafted. This letter was obtained by activist Lokesh Batra through a Right to Information application. The...
More »Open defecation-free India: National Statistical Office survey debunks Swachh Bharat claims -PRIscilla Jebaraj
-The Hindu Only 71% of rural households had access to toilets at a time the Centre was claiming 95% The latest National Statistical Office (NSO) survey on sanitation debunked the claims of an open defecation-free or ODF India made by the Centre’s flagship Swachh Bharat scheme, although it did record great progress in toilet access and use in rural areas. The survey, released on Saturday, showed that about 71% of rural households had...
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