-Scroll.in A government plan to dilute the Disabilities Act to enable ease of doing business was blocked even though the usual tools of protest were unavailable. It was last Thursday, July 2, that my phone started buzzing with notifications from friends and fellow members of the disabled community. The day earlier, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment had quietly released a notification under the ‘What’s new’ section of their website titled...
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Can raising the approved labour budget from 280.76 crore person-days to 306.6 crore person-days help the unskilled returnee migrants who prefer MGNREGA to Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan?
Although social activists and concerned economists demanded at least Rs. 1 lakh crore to be earmarked in favour of the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the Finance Minister in her budget speech on 1st February allocated only Rs.61,500 crore to it for the financial year 2020-21. As compared to the fund spent on MGNREGA in 2019-20 (i.e. revised estimate of Rs.71,001.81 crore), the amount set aside for the...
More »Transparency during a crisis -Anjali Bhardwaj
-The Hindu Proper implementation of the Right to Information Act is more crucial now than ever before Right to Information (RTI) applications seeking information pertaining to the PM CARES Fund have been stonewalled. No information exists on the official website of the Fund regarding the amount collected, names of donors, expenditure incurred, or details of beneficiaries. The trust deed of the fund chaired by the Prime Minister is not available for public...
More »How covid-19 locked out women from jobs -Rukmini S
-Livemint.com From an already low base, women’s employment has fallen further, and a recovery will be difficult A clutch of early studies on the impact of the lockdown on employment is showing that women’s employment could be particularly badly hit. Given India’s record low female workforce participation rates, growing child care demands, and a looming recession, researchers fear that women could be increasingly shut out of the productive economy. To estimate the impact...
More »India continues to lose forest land to non-forestry projects - Ishan Kukreti
-Down to Earth Central environment ministry reports diversion of 11,467 hectares forest land in 2019 (up to first week of November) The diversion of forest land for other purposes continued throughout India. A total 11,467.83 hectares (114.68 square kilometre) forest lands were diverted in 22 states between January 1 and November 6, 2019, the Union government admitted. This diversion was for 932 non-forestry projects under the Forest (Conservation) Act (FCA), 1980, according to...
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