-The Hindustan Times   After poverty line, the government and the Civil Society may converge on bringing crores of workers enrolled under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) under the minimum wages law. The government had earlier rejected demand by Civil Society members and Sonia Gandhi-headed National Advisory Council of paying wages to MGNREGA workers as per notified minimum wages of states. The reason given was that states could hike minimum...

The Planning Commission’s poverty line affidavit has exposed how blissfully ignorant the glorified economists of the UPA are of the true reality of India The 2G spectrum scam, Commonwealth Games loot, cash-for-vote bribery, Lokpal fiasco, Pranab-Chidambaram duel on the Finance Ministry note, and the count goes on. It seems the UPA-II is stuck in a rut.  As if the battering by the united Opposition and hauling over the coals by civil...

Mihir Shah, member of the Planning Commission and chairman of the committee to redraft rules and guidelines of NREGA, tells Sreelatha Menon that the Act may also cover farm labourers. The consortium of NGOs that recommended changes in the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) was founded by you, but your suggestions have been criticised. You seem to consider it a lack of demand rather than a supply problem. First, you should...

The Central expenditure on the job guarantee scheme may shoot up with Civil Society pressure that wages under the MGNREGAshould be governed by the Minimum Wages Act. NAC member Aruna Roy on Saturday urged Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi to implement the Karnataka high court order which has struck down the government order that wages under the scheme could be lower than the minimum wages in the state. The HC order...

The Planning Commission's Approach Paper to the Twelfth Plan sticks with the neoliberal agenda despite claims of inclusive growth. INCLUSIVE was one word that came up time and again in the early announcements of the Planning Commission on the Twelfth Five-Year Plan. “Faster, Sustainable and More Inclusive Growth” was the slogan coined for the Plan and there was the promise of widespread consultations as never before as part of the processes...