An unprecedented economic growth during the last decade has also seen increasing malnutrition, hunger and starvation amongst certain sections of society. India ranks 66 in the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO’s) World Hunger Index of 88 countries (Inter-national Food Policy Research Institute). More than 200 million people in this country are denied the right to food. One-third of all underweight children (57 million) in the world due to lack of...
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Jairam Ramesh proposes making rural job scheme less labour-intensive by Moyna
Revised MGNREGS guidelines to be finalised end of this week The revised guidelines for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) is likely shift the social welfare programme's thrust from being labour-intensive to material intensive. This was indicated by the Union minister for rural development, Jairam Ramesh, on November 14 at a day-long seminar on the UPA government's flagship programme. At the consultations titled, Empowering Lives through MGREGA: Strengthening...
More »Where development hasn’t quite reached by Bhamati Sivapalan and Yamini Deenadayalan
After being mired in controversies across the nation over multi-crore scams, the MGNREGA scheme hasn’t quite made headway in Bulandshahr district’s Anupshahr yet, say Bhamati Sivapalan and Yamini Deenadayalan “MGNREGA is a flop in Uttar Pradesh,” extended NGO worker Manish Sharma, as small talk, at the block development office of Anupshahr in the Bulandshahr district of Uttar Pradesh. Despite having been in force since 2005, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment...
More »Digging holes
-The Economist A maverick minister lays into a hallowed programme IT LOOKS like risky politics for Jairam Ramesh, who runs India’s biggest civilian ministry, in charge of rural development, to lash out at his own government’s flagship welfare scheme. Mr Ramesh, who got his cabinet post in July, has sparked a row in the past week over corruption and poor results within a public programme that guarantees 100 days of paid work...
More »Wages of industrial sin by Sreelatha Menon
Denial of labour entitlements to contract workers is at the root of urban squalor The human development report does not say anything new. It only sums up the outcome of policies being followed in this country. It does not, for instance, highlight the seeds that have manifested themselves in hunger and poverty. One of the seeds is the helpless labour enforcement machinery, which is unable to deal with the mammoth reality...
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