-The Hindu Federalism and good governance need engagement between people and officials, as the MGNREGA programme shows It is 45 days and counting since lakhs of farmers have gathered in Delhi protesting against the farm laws. Leaving aside the merits and demerits of the laws, many are aggrieved about the process of promulgation of the laws as it lacked any consultation with those that the laws are purportedly meant to serve. Very often,...
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Economic Liberalisation and Fertilizer Policies in India -Prachi Bansal and Vikas Rawal
-Society for Social and Economic Research The economic reforms which were started in 1991 shifted the focus of fertilizer policies away from playing a leading role in building the fertilizer industry and ensuring the availability of fertilizers at affordable prices to farmers. Under the neo-liberal policy framework, reducing the fiscal burden of fertilizer subsidies and the foreign exchange burden of fertilizer-related imports became the overriding concerns of the state. Interestingly, the post-liberalisation...
More »'No Pay in Months', Say NITI Aayog Aspirational District Programme Workers
-TheWire.in Many field workers, some of whom have not been paid since November 2019, say they have not received any official communication for the delay either. Mumbai: In January 2018, as soon as Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated his dream project ‘Aspirational District Programme‘, Sona Devi* was among the first few from Ghumla, a tribal district in Jharkhand, to join the workforce. Sona, 23, unemployed and a first-generation literate woman, was offered Rs...
More »Andhra Pradesh to deliver payments at pensioners' houses
-TheWire.in The state government has also reduced the cut-off age for old age pensioners from 65 to 60 years. New Delhi: Close to 42 lakh pensioners in Andhra Pradesh received their pensions at their houses from the village and ward volunteers under the state government’s ‘Intivadhakey Pension’ programme, according to a report in The Hindu. The massive doorstep pension Disbursement initiative was one of the promises in the YSRCP’s election manifesto and was...
More »MGNREGA allocation is way off the mark to uplift the rural economy & address economic downturn, say Right to Work activists
The Union Budget 2020-21, which was presented by the Finance Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman on 1st February, 2020 has failed to impress civil society activists and farmers' rights groups (click here and here). Through their press releases and notes, members of CSOs were demanding as well as suggesting the Union Government for hiking the budgetary allocation for schemes like Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and Pradhan Mantri...
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