The government is likely to allow advance part payment of wages in a bid to restore faith of beneficiaries in its flagship rural jobs scheme. The proposal is part of a slew of measures to address mounting criticism of the centrally-funded Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) which is beset by administrative logjam and charges of leakages. The rural development ministry has asked states to initiate a monthlong pilot...
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NREGA Lines Pockets. Not of the Poor by Abhishek Bhalla
JANGU, 40, a Dalit labourer in Paraspur village in Gonda district, 120 km northeast of Lucknow, displays his job card in complete disbelief. “My job card was made three years ago and shows three payments. But I was never given any work, so how was the payment made?” he asks, puzzled. The first entry shows a payment of Rs 1,400 but he received a paltry Rs 100. He never went...
More »NHRC questions AFSPA, finds fault with UPA schemes
-Express News Service In what could strengthen the case of those seeking lifting of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) from parts of J&K and insurgency-hit North-East, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has said the AFSPA “remains in force in Jammu & Kashmir and the North-Eastern States, conferring an impunity that often leads to the violation of human rights”. This (continuation of AFSPA), a report prepared by the NHRC...
More »Reviving Universal PDS: A Step Towards Food Security by Suranjita Ray
An unprecedented economic growth during the last decade has also seen increasing malnutrition, hunger and starvation amongst certain sections of society. India ranks 66 in the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO’s) World Hunger Index of 88 countries (Inter-national Food Policy Research Institute). More than 200 million people in this country are denied the right to food. One-third of all underweight children (57 million) in the world due to lack of...
More »How reliable is UID? by R Ramachandran
At the technical level, the question is whether the technology deployed for identification will return answers that are unambiguous. THE Unique Identification (UID) project, the national project of the Government of India, aims to give a unique 12-digit number – called Aadhaar – to every citizen of the country, a random number that is generated and linked to a person's demographic and biometric information. The key word is “unique”. Launched in...
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