Although MGNREGA has been looked upon with suspicion by the Government, industry as well as the landed farming class for various reasons including inefficiency, leakages, corruption, rise in rural wages, cost escalation etc., a new report reveals that the programme reduced poverty among its participants between 2004-05 and 2011-12 by providing employment. The report entitled Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act: A Catalyst for Rural Transformation has estimated that...

-Economic and Political Weekly The Indian weaver is dismissed in high places as an embarrassing anachronism, despite demand for his or her skills and products. In the new millennium, globalisation and a mindless acquiescence to imported notions of a good life threaten to take over, even as the West looks East for better concepts of sustainable living. Analysing today's crisis in the handloom sector, plagued by low-cost imitations from power looms,...

-Livemint.com The money from the Union govt will be routed through the state employment guarantee fund window to the workers accounts New Delhi: In a bid to eliminate delays and corruption in the payment of wages to workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the Union cabinet on Wednesday approved the direct release of wages from the Centre to the workers. Workers will be assured of timely payment...

-The Hindu To help break the impasse on the Bill, the Cabinet decided on adding a provision to enable the States to frame and pass their own laws. The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, deliberated on Tuesday a proposal to amend the Land Bill to give flexibility to the States to frame their own laws for land acquisition, a demand various Chief Ministers aired at the July 15 meeting...

-TheNorthEastToday.com DIMAPUR: Nagaland Governor P.B. Acharya formally inaugurated India`s first bamboo toilets here on Wednesday. The inauguration took place at the Nagaland Bamboo Resource Centre in Dimapur as part of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Mission). The two prototype bamboo toilets inaugurated by Acharya are an outcome of a five-day training on “bamboo toilets for private use and for the community” jointly organised by Nagaland Bamboo Development Agency (NBDA) and South Asia...