In the midst of national debates over the need for labour laws reforms and the efficacy of MG-NREGA in checking distress migration, a new report brings spotlight on the miserable living and working conditions of unorganized migrant workers from Rajasthan. Titled Their Own Country: A Profile of Labor Migration from Rajasthan, the report prepared jointly by Aajeevika Bureau and UNESCO informs us that 70% of seasonal migrant workers from Rajasthan...

-Business Standard New schemes allows consumers without Aadhaar to receive Cash directly in their bank accounts The government is to launch the modified version of the Direct Benefit Transfer scheme (DBT) for Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) in 54 districts across the country from tomorrow. The government hopes to cut down on large scale diversion of subsidised domestic cooking gas that does not make Aadhaar number mandatory. Earlier version of the scheme that was rolled...

-NDTV The Chhattisgarh government is guilty, at the least, of culpable homicide for the deaths of over a dozen women in government-run sterilisation camps in the last few days. But the government and in particular the Health Minister think they can escape from their own responsibility by arresting the doctor who did the operations and setting up a judicial enquiry. Really? You need a judicial enquiry to tell you that the targets you...

-The Hindu "Rs. 40,000-crore component is for the whole country" The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is not going to restrict the implementation of MGNREGA to a few pocket of the country, the new Minister for Rural Development Chaudhary Birendra Singh, said on Tuesday. Mr. Singh was responding to questions over whether the government was planning to restrict the scheme's implementation to only tribal and poor areas - 2500 blocks of all States -...

-The Hindu Is India ready to Cash in on its demographic dividend? A demographic dividend is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a nation and can either make or mar its citizens' present and future. When the share of the working-age population is on a rising curve while the share of dependents (those under the age of 15 and over 60) is falling, it enables workers to save (hence savings share in GDP rises)...