-The Hindu Putting more money in the hands of rural households will stir up the economy The government’s statistical machinery has begun work on revising the indices that capture the trends in consumer prices experienced in rural India. This opens up the prospect for an upward revision in the wages paid out to workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). The current national average wage is just about...

-The Hindu Business Line Low food inflation and high services inflation in rural India is doing more bad than good for the rural population CPI Inflation in August came in at benign 3.21 per cent, although it recorded a marginal uptick from July. A deeper look at the numbers brings out the widening disparity between the urban and rural inflation. Rural inflation in August was almost half of urban retail inflation. With...

-The Hindu Stimulus measure to link pay to consumer price index with annual revision. Staring at a slump in rural demand and a slowdown in the rural economy, the Centre plans to inject more money into the UPA’s flagship Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme by linking wages under the Act to an updated inflation index, which will be revised annually. It hopes this will increase wages, thus increasing...

-The Telegraph The report was made public at a time large sections of the mainstream media have been accused of toeing the government line or have faced communication hurdles in reporting New Delhi: A team of civil society members has recorded testimonies about children who say they were detained and beaten in Kashmir since an ongoing lockdown erected an information blockade in the Valley. The team members said they were denied the use...

-The Telegraph The BJP has been cornering the lion’s share of all money going to political parties New Delhi: Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday called for a debate on state funding of elections, underscoring the urgency by drawing attention to how one party has had access to 90 per cent of the money going to political parties. Singh flagged the issue while addressing a meeting to mark the birth centenary year...