The United Progressive Alliance government's decision to challenge the Karnataka High Court's ruling on payment of minimum wages to workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act came under attack from the Central Employment Guarantee Council (CEGC), the body that governs the programme. And Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh has warned Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that the “atmospherics associated with filing of a special leave petition [in...

-The United Nations   The internationally stated goal of improving access to safe drinking water across the globe is likely to be achieved well ahead of the 2015 deadline, but large numbers of people in the world’s least developed regions will still not benefit, according to a United Nations report released today. Reducing by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015 is one...

Fixing of minimum wages in the States and under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme is set to become a poll issue, at least in Uttar Pradesh. Even as the Ministry of Rural Development is hurrying to revise the wage rate under the MGNREGS next week, its officials are apprehensive that Uttar Pradesh too might revise its minimum farm wages in a couple of days. The officials are keenly watching...

-EPW   A paradigm shift on global strategy, but will it make a difference to climate change or only pass the buck? The United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Durban ended dramatically with a last minute agreement of sorts, which only talks about more talks to arrive at some kind of legally binding instrument that will impose emission curbs on all countries from 2020. The agreement is simply not enough in...

-The Hindu   Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on Tuesday expressed her “strong opposition” to the draft Food Security Bill, 2011 and urged the Centre to exempt Tamil Nadu from the purview of the Bill. In her letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, she said the proposed Bill was replete with “confusion and inaccuracy.” The proposed classification of target groups into priority household (PHH) and general household (GHH) for delivery of food entitlements would surely invite...