-Financial Express If panchayat allocations are merged with MGNREGA to aid asset creation, it can trigger infrastructure growth, resulting in extra income and improved conditions. There is a lot of debate around 5% GDP growth and its impact on the organised sector. Although the government has been taking multiple steps to trigger the economy, there is a need to focus on rural India, in terms of optimising of fund allocations and revision...

-Newsclick.in Till October 2019, over 2.5 crore applicant households were turned back when they sought work under the rural job guarantee scheme. It would have seemed natural – indeed, imperative – that, as India grapples with a deadly slowdown, with agricultural economy growing only at around 2% and rural joblessness hovering at a shocking 8%, the government would infuse some energy in the implementation of the rural jobs guarantee scheme (MGNREGA). This...

  Air quality in North India in general and Delhi National Capital Region (Delhi NCR) in particular plunged to its lowest point in recent years during October-November thanks to a variety of factors. Through media reports one comes to know that stubble burning (also called paddy straw burning/ crop residue burning) is chiefly responsible for the public health crisis in India's capital and its nearby regions. Data accessed from the website...

-Newsclick.in Even if the wage rates under MGNREGA are doubled and if jobs are provided for at least 100 days in a year as per the law, the extra expenditure would not exceed 1% of GDP. The growth rate is slowing down in India neither because of lower productivity of the labourers or that of the land, nor because of shortage of labour or productive capacity, but because of the lack of...

-News18.com Another approach to improving citizen engagement could be through community platforms like Self-Help Groups (SHGs) and gram sabhas. The Poshan Abhiyaan intends to do this, but lacks how these platforms reinforce accountability. We are a nation that carries 23.8% of the global burden of malnutrition, with a total of 195.9 million under-nourished people. But it is reassuring that the government is committed to tackle malnutrition on a war footing with...