Maharashtra, pioneer of the employment guarantee scheme 35 years ago, is now the worst performer under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) with the home districts of some of its tallest leaders dragging it down. For instance, Pune, home district of Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, has provided negligible work in the past two years despite strong demand for employment. As per the official figures for the current year,...

-Economic and Political Weekly   Mamata Banerjee concurs with P Chidambaram’s counterinsurgency strategy. She revels in rhetoric – Mamata Banerjee’s word of honour was parivartan (change). A large section of the people of West Bengal desperately wanted change, so parivartan brought her to the helm at Writers’ Building, with its Corinthian facade carrying over from the heyday of the East India Company, now, of course, the office and secretariat of the chief minister...

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) is under pressure from several quarters. One such source of pressure is the rural rich whose concerns were recently voiced by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, when he raised the bogey of shortage of supply of farm workers because of the employment guarantee scheme. The fact is that the national average for workdays generated under the scheme is less than half of the...

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee told the people of the Maoist-hit areas of Purulia district on Friday that “you shall get whatever you ask for, provided you don't support the Maoists.” “You shall have colleges, schools, hospitals, stadia, sports academies and even a medical college. Whatever you ask for, we shall provide it. But you must make only one promise — you will not support the Maoists,” she said, addressing...

-The Indian Express   West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has not adapted well from a life in opposition to being the head of her state’s government. Yet even by her standards, and those of the hollowed-out administrative machinery of the state now in her care, her recent actions have been shocking. On Monday, a religious procession passed through a section of south Kolkata dotted by hospitals, including one for cancer patients...