-The Hindu     With the closing of relief camps in Muzaffarnagar, even the meagre food support has disappeared. As the winter cold descends this year on Muzaffarnagar and Shamli districts in Western U.P., some 20,000 people will camp in makeshift unofficial camps amidst squalor and official neglect, or survive in small rented tenements or with relatives - exiles from the villages of their birth. Three months after one of the grimmest communal outbreaks...

-The Times of India As the clock ticks towards the general elections in a few months time, a major crack appears to be opening up in the government. The mandarins of finance ministry - presumably with the sanction of finance minister P Chidambaram - have proposed huge cuts amounting to over Rs 20,000 crore in spending on popular flagship schemes like the employment guarantee scheme, the rural housing scheme, the village...

-Frontline In a situation of increasing life expectancy and crumbling traditional support structures, a universal social pension scheme that does not rely on contribution by a person or an employer can help the elderly. INDIA prides itself on being a "young" society, likely to benefit from a demographic dividend as children and young people move into working age groups over the next decade. This optimistic view assumes that society will be able...

-The Business Standard NGOs have been asked to run MGNREGS in the country's 184 most backward blocks Will handing over the management of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) ensure the scheme works? The rural development ministry seems to think so, at least in Naxal-hit areas. Under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural employment Guarantee Act, NGOs are allowed to run the scheme, provided gram panchayats run...

-The Hindu     States that increase minimum wage will have to bear extra cost from their own resources A committee set up by the Ministry of Rural Development to revise wages under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) has offered suggestions that are likely to iron out long-standing issues relating to disparity in earnings under the scheme. Currently, MGNREGA wages are lower than the minimum wages in several States, including in...