-Hindustan Times Less than 57% of the people who sought work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) have received jobs under the programme. At a time when millions of migrant workers who have returned home to the hinterland are looking towards it for a livelihood, the government’s flagship rural jobs programme has got off to a slow start in the new financial year, government data show, amid the...

-The Hindu They criticised the top court for its “self-effacing deference” to the government Hours before taking suo motu cognisance of “certain lapses” in government measures dealing with migrant workers, the Supreme Court received a stinging letter from 10 senior lawyers each from Delhi and Mumbai that was critical of its “self-effacing deference” to the government, “unwillingness” and “apparent indifference” in the face of the “enormous humanitarian crisis”. The senior lawyers, who include...

-The Hindu A huge challenge is likely to emerge when the swarms flying over 20 districts in Rajasthan start breeding. Jaipur: The threat of locusts, which have invaded vast swathes of land in Rajasthan and entered neighbouring Madhya Pradesh, is bigger this year in comparison with the damage caused to standing crops in a limited area in 2019. The tropical grasshoppers have been crossing over to India via Pakistan’s Sindh province since...

-Livemint.com * India is set to spend over ₹1 tn on the world’s largest rural employment programme. Can it be made to work better? * Large work sites should be opened proactively in each panchayat without waiting for applications. Anyone who shows up should be allowed to work and payments should be in cash If we get work in the village, why would we go elsewhere? We have worked on NREGA before, but...

-The Hindu Court takes suo motu cognisance of migrant workers issue, sees inadequacies and lapses in dealing with the crisis. A three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court on may 26 said there have been “inadequacies and certain lapses” on the part of the Central and State governments in dealing with the migrant workers crisis during the lockdown. The court ordered the Centre and the States to immediately provide transport, food and shelter free...