-TheConversation.com/TheWire.in With the cost-of-living crisis now at the top of the public’s agenda in many developed countries, the setting of interest rates has ceased to be just a technical matter and has instead become highly political. Where is the global economy heading in 2023? After all the challenges of last year, it’s a question we ask with trepidation. Just as the economy was dealing with the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic,...

-The Hindu Any delay in funds to be paid to States for Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme payments is unethical A testy exchange in the Rajya Sabha between the Minister of State for Rural Development, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, and the Trinamool Congress MP, Jawhar Sircar, on the withholding of funds for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in West Bengal laid bare a key implementation issue —...

-Factchecker.in/ Scroll.in MGNREGA is a social security and employment scheme which aims to provide at least 100 days of guaranteed employment in a year to every rural household. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, while addressing the Lower House of the Parliament on December 14, claimed that the demand for work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act is declining. “There is now very obviously a declining demand for jobs in the...

-The Telegraph No other state has ever been denied funds for such a long period under the scheme, which provides for up to 100 days of paid, unskilled work to every rural household in a year New Delhi: The Centre’s decision to stop funds to Bengal under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act will have denied job opportunities to 30 lakh rural families in the state this year, a study...

-The Telegraph Study by researchers at International Institute of Population Sciences finds that health reasons account for 7 per cent of 3,213 people who stopped work for a year or longer New Delhi: Chronic health disorders accounted for 30 per cent of decisions by a sample of middle-aged and elderly people in India to stop or curtail paid work, the country’s first-ever population-based study to estimate how chronic diseases impact productivity has...