-IndiaWaterPortal.org In this interview, Joy talks about his work as an activist working in rural Maharashtra, and how he came to work on water conflicts in India. To many in the water sector, K. J. Joy needs no introduction. An activist at heart, Joy is known for his untiring rights based work in mobilising communities in rural Maharashtra, and for his research work on water and water related conflicts including inter-state...

-Down to Earth Pronab Sen, former chief statistician of India and current programme director of the International Growth Centre’s India Programme, speaks to Kundan Pandey about how recent government policies have crippled the income of the poor and slowed the economy * Kundan Pandey: Is there low demand in the economy? Pronab Sen: The demand is not low. The crisis is that the demand is not growing. For a long time, people...

-Hindustan Times Many analysts have underlined that the BJP’s below-par performance in the Maharashtra and Haryana assembly elections reflected concern, among other factors, about the economy, which slumped to a growth rate of 6% in the three months to June 30, the slowest pace in over six years. The government has already spent nearly 80% of its full-year budget for the flagship rural job guarantee programme, top officials said on Friday,...

-CounterCurrents.org Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) this year has almost come to a standstill. While the nation is debating the economic slowdown and falling demand in the rural areas , economists emphasizing that increase in the rural income and generating resources for the poor as a potential solution to the on going crisis, the so called world’s largest job scheme remains neglected by the Government of India. While focusing...

-The Hindu While indexation of the NREGA wages is critical, lifting them to the minimum wage would help workers and the economy The government made two recent announcements at two ends of the spectrum to mitigate the economic crisis. One concerns a new indexation of NREGA wages meant to increase rural incomes. The second is a reduction in corporate tax rate. Prices of commodities increase each year, so it’s important to accurately estimate...