-The Hindu The programme reduced poverty by up to 32 per cent and prevented 14 million people from falling into poverty. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) reduced poverty by up to a third and gave a large number of women their first opportunity to earn cash income, a new research has found. Officials from the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) and the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER)...

-Economic and Political Weekly There are basic methodological and conceptual problems with recent research that ends up arguing that private school education is more effective than public education. Such findings have obvious policy implications but it is critical that research that informs policy is based on a correct reading of facts, keeping the larger vision of education in mind. Recent research into the cost effectiveness of public education vis-à-vis private education concludes...

-The New Indian Express BENGALURU: Social discrimination and lack of economic stability force socio-economic minorities to migrate to other villages or cities, Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) chairman Sukhdeo Thorat said on Tuesday. Hence, the state government should ensure social equality in villages, Prof Thorat said while inaugurating a seminar on ‘Distress labour migration within and towards southern Indian states’ organised by the Indian Social Institute. A Labour and Migration...

-Business Standard The govt's view is that the unions should be representatives of the workers who can negotiate with the management and raise issues concerning them The labour wing of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) on Monday raised concerns over the Union government's proposal to restrict the entry of outsiders into the trade unions. "The ILO convention clearly states that it should be up to the trade unions to decide about its structures...

-Economic and Political Weekly A categorical distinction is facing rough weather--that between urban and rural. If we take just agriculture, there is so much of the outside world that comes in not just as external markets but as external inputs. Further, many of our villages barely qualify as rural if we were to take occupation alone. So the earlier line that separated the farmer from the worker in towns is slowly...