-The Hindu The production of waste in India is growing at an exponential rate. However, the welfare and dignity of the informal workers involved in the stigmatised sector of waste management remains at the bottom of any government’s political agenda. Human society has always produced waste and always will. Waste materials — substances without value — are constantly generated in all production, all distribution and all consumption processes. The time waste spends...

-Livemint.com MGNREGS work days increased to 150 from 100; Rs.5,142 cr rurban project to create 300 smart village clusters New Delhi: The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government on Wednesday unveiled a package of measures to combat rural distress in the backdrop of a below-average monsoon rainfall. The Union cabinet decided to increase the number of days of employment under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) from the existing 100...

-The Hindu Business Line The PM Krishi Sinchai Yojana smacks of poor watershed planning. As with earlier schemes, accountability is absent The launch of any new scheme by the government always creates a sense of déjà vu. First, priorities, plans and programmes constantly change depending upon who’s in power at the Centre; second, schemes, new or old, deliver identical outcomes. The Ganga Action Plan (GAP), Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Programme (AIBP), MNREGA were all...

Two recent reports show that this social sector scheme has had a causal impact in improving lives, especially for women and children Fourteen million people escaped falling into poverty under the world’s largest anti-poverty programme, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). In 10 years of its existence, the scheme reduced poverty by 32 per cent. Recent data also shows that more women are drawing cash incomes, more children...

-PTI NEW DELHI: As many as five million jobs were lost between 2004-05 and 2009-10 — paradoxically during the time when India's economy grew at a fast clip — an Assocham study said. This has put a question mark on whether economic expansion should be linked to job creation, according to the study. Moreover, it observed that over-emphasis on services and neglect of the manufacturing sector are mainly responsible for this "jobless growth"...