-The Hindu Over 2 lakh households have exhausted quota. More than 2 lakh rural households have already completed their guaranteed 100 days of employment under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme within the first three months of the financial year, according to the scheme’s database. This is higher than seen at the same time last year, indicating even higher demand for work than 2020-21’s unprecedented levels. Given the high...

-IndiaSpend.com To fight hunger and distress due to the pandemic, India must universalise foodgrain distribution, expand the food basket in its rations scheme and provide cash transfers, activist Anjali Bhardwaj tells us in this interview Bengaluru: The pandemic-induced lockdowns have had a profound impact on livelihoods, affecting poor Indians' food intake, studies show. In October 2020, more than half the respondents of a Hunger Survey said their rice/wheat consumption had declined during...

-The Hindu There was a total expenditure of ₹1.34 crore without approPRIation by legislature Tamil Nadu’s revenue deficit of ₹23,459.44 crore during 2018-19 was understated by ₹3,757.23 crore and fiscal deficit by ₹1,300.49 crore PRImarily owing to short transfers totalling ₹1,366 crore towards various reserve funds, such as sinking fund and guarantee redemption fund, according to the Comptroller and Auditor-General’s report on State finances for the year ended March 2019. There were...

-Hindustan Times A PRImary barrier to getting women vaccinated is the limited understanding of the disparate impacts Covid-19 vaccines have on them While less than 20% of India’s adult population has received their first Covid-19 vaccine dose, clear gender disparities have arisen in the rollout. A recent analysis by Ashoka University shows that for every 100 men, around 86 women were vaccinated. This is significantly lower than India’s sex ratio of approximately...

-Newsclick.in Rice meant for the poor will be sold at subsidised rates to PRIvately-owned ethanol distilleries. The industries will be given cheap loans and exempted from Environmental Clearances. Is the Modi government subsidising the rich at the cost of the poor by diverting foodgrains meant for the most impoverished sections of the population to PRIvate industries for producing alcohol for India’s ethanol blended petrol programme? There’s more: For manufacturing ethanol, foodgrains will not...