-The Financial Express The proposed MGNREGA changes can help plug the leakages and enhance agriculture productivity There is good news about the Mahatma Gandhi National rural employment Guarantee (MGNREGA) scheme. Recent press reports reveal that the rural development minister, Nitin Gadkari, has instructed lowering of the mandatory share for unskilled wages in total expenditure from the current 60% to 51%. He has also directed, quite rightly, that 50% of the expenditure be...

-The Indian Express Moves to dilute labour-material ratio in MGNREGA and focus exclusively on select backward blocks will adversely impact rural poor. Before the general elections, free-market fundamentalists had lobbied fiercely to reshape so-called wasteful social-sector expenditures. Primary among their targets was the Mahatma Gandhi National rural employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), which, according to them, should become an unconditional cash transfer scheme. Post-elections, the late Gopinath Munde's espousal of the MGNREGA went...

-The Hindu Agroforestry promotes productive cropping environments, prevents deforestation, protects watersheds and enables agricultural land to withstand extreme weather events Growing trees on farms is a triple-win strategy for combating simultaneously the challenges of increasing food production, mitigating greenhouse gases and adapting to climate change. It is an instrument of Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA), catapulted to centre-stage by President Obama's launch of the Global Alliance for CSA at the World Climate Summit on...

-The Times of India JAIPUR: The paradox could not be greater. The Mahatma Gandhi National rural employment Guarantee Act, which had its genesis in the mass movements launched in Rajasthan, is now facing a dilution in its home state. The Union rural development ministry is likely to amend the provisions of MGNREGA, converting it to just a scheme and thereby threatening to rob it of its es sence. In Rajasthan, such an...

-The Business Standard Successful roll-out of MGNREGA and PDS helped India get a better rank India has improved its position in the Global Hunger Index. The country climbed eight positions in the index from 63 last year to 55 this year, though it still trails nations like Malawi, Ghana and Suriname. A significant reduction in the number of underweight children as well as the successful roll-out and expansion of programmes like the Mahatma...