The much-vaunted NREGA has defaulted on many of its promises “There are many households in our village who have NREGA cards but have not sought work for over two years,” says 32-year-old Umesh Kumar, gram pradhan of Bhainswal village, in Muzaffarnagar district of Uttar Pradesh. In fact, Kumar recounts having to actually go around persuading people to come for work “whenever we get projects for implementation under NREGA”. This first-time...

She has spent considerable time researching female infanticide. Sharada Srinivasan talks about why elimination of the girl child is prevalent all over the country. Daughter elimination is very much prevalent in Tamil Nadu even if not as intense as in other parts of the country. Sharada Srinivasan, assistant professor in International Development Studies at York University Toronto, has spent a considerable amount of time researching this subject. Her book Daughter Deficit:...

The Union government has cleared an external loan to finance part of the programme launched by the Ministry of Rural Development in left wing extremism-affected villages. The clearance is for a loan of $500 million from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to speed up construction of rural roads. Union Minister of Rural Development Jairam Ramesh has, in a letter, urged Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to issue directions for negotiating and early signing...

Indigenous knowledge and farming practices of the region's tribal people recognised for promoting food security and conserving biodiversity Traditional farming systems in India have received a major boost at a time when Indian agriculture is struggling to come to terms with modern technologies. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations has accorded the status of Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS) to the traditional agricultural system being practiced...

The lone Indian activist on the 2011 TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world, Aruna Roy has been more successful than most,  when it comes to getting the government’s attention. The Chennai-born former bureaucrat who was an instrumental force behind the revolutionary Right to Information Act has also been credited by the government for “incorporating strong citizen entitlements” in the ambitious National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). A constant...