-PTI In a bid to check corruption in payment of MGNREGA wages, the government plans to introduce videography during the process, Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh said here today. "Videography will be used in the presence of officials while giving wages to the MGNREGA beneficiaries from now to ensure proper and timely payment," Ramesh said. Recalling how corruption in the social audit of MGNREGA had claimed Niyamat Ansari, who exposed corruption by...
More »SEARCH RESULT
NREGA Lines Pockets. Not of the Poor by Abhishek Bhalla
JANGU, 40, a Dalit labourer in Paraspur village in Gonda district, 120 km northeast of Lucknow, displays his job card in complete disbelief. “My job card was made three years ago and shows three payments. But I was never given any work, so how was the payment made?” he asks, puzzled. The first entry shows a payment of Rs 1,400 but he received a paltry Rs 100. He never went...
More »NHRC notice to Madhya Pradesh on missing workers
-The Hindu The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has issued a notice to the Madhya Pradesh Chief Secretary, returnable with a report in six weeks, on allegation that 40 Labourers were not traceable after heavy cranes collapsed at an under-construction cement factory in Narsingarh village in Damoh district. The NHRC was acting based on media reports. The reports said that about 300 Labourers, mostly from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, were working at...
More »A verdict, finally by Anupama Katakam
The first judgment in a 2002 riots case and the SIT report on the Ishrat Jahan killing go against the Gujarat government. THE verdict in a crucial and long-running case involving a massacre and the investigation report in another case, of alleged encounter killings, both delivered in November, give hope to victims of the 2002 pogrom in Gujarat that they will get justice, even if delayed. In the first case, the special...
More »Kaun Banega Scorepati? by Jean Drèze
There is no typo in the title of this article, but the term “scorepati” is perhaps confusing. By way of explanation, let me introduce three acquaintances. Meena, age 50, lives in a two-room kaccha hut with her disabled husband Chhote Lal who studied up to Class 2. They own half an acre of unirrigated land and a goat. Meena is unable to take up any remunerated work as Chhote Lal needs...
More »