-Livemint.com Delays in payment and indifferent implementation, among other reasons, have blunted the programme’s effectiveness Procedural lapses have marred the implementation of the state-funded job guarantee programme aimed at alleviating rural distress in India, according to a review of the scheme in eight states by the rural development ministry. While delays in disbursal of funds for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) have held up wage payments in Madhya...

-The Indian Express Between 2005 and 2012, structural changes drove poverty reduction — non-agricultural incomes rose the fastest, and the largest shifts from farm to salaried non-farm employment were seen among the poorest. The significant shift from farm work to non-farm sources of income accelerated the decline in poverty in India. Non-farm jobs pay more than agricultural labour, and incomes from both were propelled by a steep rise in wages for rural...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: A month has gone by since the Supreme Court issued directions to tackle drought but it is "business as usual" for the Centre and the affected states, civil society organisations have said. Worse, government intervention is even less than what it used to be in colonial times, they said. A quarter of the country is drought-hit at present. On May 11, the apex court had pronounced the Centre guilty...

-BBC Up to one third of the world's food is wasted before it can be eaten. That's 1.3 billion tonnes, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. At the same time up to 793 million people don't get enough nourishment to help them live a healthy life. So, what can be done to fix these two major challenges the world is facing? In India, dabbawalas are using their world-renowned...

-The Hindu Argue that proposed amendments to Act will only enable legalising child labour Chennai: Amidst efforts by the Union Labour Ministry to bring in certain amendments to the Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act, 1986 and to allow children below 14 years of age to ‘help’ in family enterprises, activists demand that the government should not pass the bill in Parliament. In the run-up to Anti Child Labour Day on...