-The Indian Express The average days of employment provided per household, too, fell to 40.01 from 45.97 in 2013-14 and 46.20 in 2012-13. From Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s public barbs against its being a “living proof” of 60 years of Congress misrule, to a proposal now for extending the annual work entitlement to 150 days in drought-affected areas, the BJP-led government’s disposition towards the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Act (MGNREGA)...
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Cash for Food--A Misplaced Idea -Dipa Sinha
-Economic and Political Weekly Direct benefi t transfers in the form of cash cannot replace the supply of food through the public distribution system. Though it is claimed otherwise, DBT does not address the problems of identifying the poor ("targeting") and DBT in place of the PDS will expose the vulnerable to additional price fluctuation. Further, if the PDS is dismantled, there will also be no need or incentive for procurement...
More »Web-based tool to monitor atrocities against Dalits, tribals
-IANS New Delhi: Claiming that the government has failed to safeguard the interests of the marginalised, National Commission for Scheduled Castes chairperson P.L. Punia on Wednesday called for advancing awareness about a web-based monitoring tool called ATM that tracks atrocities against Dalits and the tribals across India. Addressing a training workshop to promote the use of Atrocity Tracking and Monitoring (ATM) System, Punia said: "The ATM should be the medium to inform...
More »Chhattisgarh lessons
-The Financial Express For all its targeting, fake ration cards abound. The GPS tracking of trucks carrying ration shop grain and the SMS alerts were supposed to be unique ways in which the Chhattisgarh government had resolved the issue of pilferage of ration shop foodgrains. Once people were informed that the rations had left the FCI godowns and when they reached their ration shops, there was less scope for pilferage. Hardly surprising...
More »Union Budget and the 'Digital Divide': Old Wine in New Bottle -Vipul Mudgal
-Economic and Political Weekly The emphasis on use of digital technologies to bridge the "rural-urban gap" in the union budget is limited to high talk and minimal allocations. The need for a more comprehensive and peoples' participation-oriented rural action plan should have been the focus while setting sectoral allocations, but that is not to be in this mid-year budget. Vipul Mudgal (vipulmudgal@gmail.com) heads the Inclusive Media for Change project at the Centre...
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