-The Hindustan Times What was inconceivable only few days ago in the corridors of the rural development ministry is now openly being pitched for - how to scale down UPA government's brainchild NREGA. Ministry officials are busy drawing up a blueprint for the new government to tweak NREGA in a bid to increase the efficiency of the 2006 rural job guarantee scheme. Some of the proposed changes include a focus on select blocks...
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Adding another national regulator will not help environment -Chandra Bhushan
-Down to Earth India needs second-generation reforms in environmental governance to protect environment and community rights and reduce transaction costs for industry After more than two years of flip-flops by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), the Supreme Court (SC) gave a deadline of April 30, this year to the ministry to start the process of setting up a national environmental regulator under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, with offices...
More »RTE, higher education big challenges for new govt -Akshaya Mukul
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: When a new HRD minister takes over next week, he will be virtually presiding over a mess left behind by the previous government. In the first few weeks as the debris is cleared, the new minister will discover the two contrasting worlds of school and higher education. Despite the problems and handicap the Right to Education faces, the last five years have seen the historic...
More »Lucrative but ‘fundamentally evil,’ forced labour must be eradicated once and for all –UN agency
-The United Nations Millions of people suffering under the yoke of modern slavery - more than half are women and girls primarily in commercial sex trade or domestic work - are generating some $150 billion a year in illegal profits for the people who are exploiting them, according to a new report released today by the United Nations International Labour Organization (ILO). The startling new report, Profits and Poverty: The Economics of Forced...
More »Rs 1,400 MSP for wheat disappoints Maharashtra farmers -Aparna Pallavi
-Down to Earth Demand minimum support price of above Rs 2,000 per 100 kg; say present MSP does not meet even cost of cultivation Maharashtra government has recently announced the minimum support price for wheat at Rs 1,400 per quintal (100 kg). The decision has not gone down well with either the farmers or the agriculture department. Farmers in the state have questioned the rationale behind this low MSP, saying that such...
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