-Economic and Political Weekly The Maharashtra government's village forest rules seek to overturn the rights regime established in the letter of the law by the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act and the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act 1996 in terms of both community rights, as well as the rights over minor forest produce. Moreover, the rules write away the future rights of...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: The NITI Aayog will draw up schedules for key social sector programmes to counter the criticism that implementation has been slow even two years after the Narendra Modi government took over. The Aayog's Chief Executive Officer Amitabh Kant made several outcome-based presentations to the Prime Minister last month on sectors such as education, health, rural development and infrastructure. Timelines have been established to achieve progress in areas...

-Business Standard 2,170 million person-days planned for FY17, compared with 2,391 million person-days last year At a time when nearly half of India's 676 districts are grappling with a second consecutive year of drought, the government expects a decline in the demand for work under the flagship Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in 2016-17. The estimated number of days when people in rural India will be offered work under MGNREGS...

-The Indian Express There is a mounting employment crisis in India. The current growth model, built on large private investments, cannot address the problem. Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan raised many hackles with his demand for affirmative action or job reservations for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe candidates in the private sector. He suggested that “providing quota in private jobs will help cool down anger among SC and STs”, thereby stemming...

-Business Standard Instead of addressing systemic problems in agriculture, farm politics in the state is about how much money the government can offer the farmer as a dole The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), led by Parkash Singh Badal and son Sukhbir, was in a dilemma a year before the 2012 Assembly elections in Punjab. The Akalis had ruled Punjab since 2007 but no party had ever returned to power for a second...