-The Indian Express Cash in the hands of the poor can transform their lives. With bank accounts and an Aadhaar card for all becoming a reality, it is possible to transfer money directly to the poor and check middlemen who siphon away funds. Cash transfers (CTs) come in many forms. They may be conditional or unconditional, selective or non-selective, targeted or universal. Some types of CT are as susceptible to misuse as...
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Modi U-turn for the better: Changing NREGA would have been a mistake -Rajesh Pandathil
-FirstPost.com Not all U-turns are bad. Some are good, like the one by the NDA government on the MNREGA, also called NREGA . For the uninitiated, the new NDA government had about three months back proposed to make changes to the pro-poor scheme launched by the erstwhile United Progressive Alliance. According to media reports that cited a circular, the proposal was to amend the NREG Act by restricting the area of work...
More »Being middle class in India -Devesh Kapur and Milan Vaishnav
-The Hindu Are differences within the middle class, in income, education, and cultural and social capital, so wide as to render moot any ideological or behavioural coherence to this group? The rapid growth of the Indian economy over the past three decades has led to a substantial expansion of India's "middle class". This has triggered a robust debate over who in India actually belongs to the "middle class," its size, composition, and...
More »Limiting MGNREGS to poorest districts will not help, finds survey -Rukmini S
-The Hindu Targeting households rather than districts may be more effective, says NCAER official Would confining India's flagship rural jobs scheme to the 200 poorest districts direct the benefits to those who need it most? New data indicates that this is unlikely to be the case - little separates India's poorest districts from others, and both sets rely on the scheme. In early October, reports surfaced that the Union government was considering restricting...
More »Cash transfers can work better than subsidies -Guy Standing
-The Hindu Providing people with a modest basic income instead of subsidies would save public revenue With oil prices falling, it was perhaps a good time to fade out fuel subsidies. All subsidies are inefficient and distortionary, and most are regressive. The same could be said of costly public works schemes as well. By contrast, the debate on direct benefit transfers has moved into a more sensible phase, with the posturing criticism of...
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