As sex ratio worsens, Plan panel makes taboo proposal As the first line of defence against female foeticide, sex determination tests on pregnant women have been illegal in India for years. But in what could end up as a major policy shift, the Planning Commission is proposing relaxing the ban for rural areas as part of a programme of “adopting” female foetuses and generously incentivising families and health workers to ensure the...

The basic problem with the Approach Paper, as with its predecessor, is that its theoretical paradigm is wrong. WHAT used to be said of the Bourbon kings of France applies equally to the Indian Planning Commission: “They learn nothing and they forget nothing.” The Approach Paper to the Twelfth Five-Year Plan gives one a sense of déjà vu. It is hardly any different from the Approach Paper to the previous Plan...

Chastened by the 'poverty line' controversy painting the Centre as insensitive to 'aam aadmi', the government is wary of challenging a Karnataka high court order which slammed the state for paying MGNREGA workers less than the minimum farm wages.  The court said that job scheme wages could not be less than the minimum agricultural wages and ordered that workers be paid the arrears.  The HC order would put an additional burden of...

After firefighting the controversy over poverty line cut-off, the Congress-led UPA government may find itself in trouble on the matter of NREGS wages. In a judgment late last month, the Karnataka High Court ruled that wages under the UPA’s flagship rural job guarantee scheme “shall not be” less than the minimum wages fixed by state governments under the Minimum Wages (MW) Act. The decision will re-open the tussle between Sonia Gandhi-led National...

Any new system for the socio-economic progress of Dalits and other vulnerable sections must not lose sight of Special Component Plan goals. THE Planning Commission's “Approach to the 12th Five Year Plan” deals with the Scheduled Castes (S.C.s) briefly in a portion of Chapter 11 titled “Social and Regional Equity”. It, however, significantly mentions the need to devise a new system that can overcome the difficulties experienced with regard to the...