-The Indian Express Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh has proposed to “live fence” graveyards, dargahs and eidgahs under MGNREGA to protect them. In a letter to National Commission for Minorities chief Wajahat Habibullah, who had requested that boundary walls around these places be built under the employment guarantee scheme, Ramesh suggested that they “be provided with live fencing under the Land Development and Plantation works category of MGNREGA for which provisions may...

Remember Arjun Sengupta Committee Report? It’s the same report which put paid to government’s shifting poverty estimates by asserting that almost 80% Indian survive on less than Rs 20 per day. Known as the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector (NCEUS), the report has gone missing from the public domain. The official website of NCEUS is no more working: http://nceus.gov.in, raising doubts regarding someone, somewhere trying to hide...

Patna, Oct 4 (IANS): Thirty-four officials of the rural jobs scheme in Bihar have been dismissed from service for corruption Thursday, a minister said, adding that first information reports have been lodged against 43 others. Bihar Rural Development Minister Nitish Mishra Thursday said that the government has sacked 34 officials of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), and lodged first information reports against 43 officials for involvement in...

-The Hindu The Supreme Court’s unyielding criticism of the government for not eradicating the practice of manual scavenging was the springboard for the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment to introduce the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Bill, 2012 in the Lok Sabha on September 3. Welcomed as a panacea for the historically iniquitous, caste-ordained practice of manually handling human waste, the new Bill indicates renewed commitment...

-The Times of India Average life expectancy in India jumped up by 4.6 years in the decade up to 2008, according to the latest data released by the Registrar General of India. Since this was also the period when economic reforms had the maximum impact, it gives the lie to an idea that's pervasive in the political domain - that reforms benefited only a tiny elite, leaving the rest of India's...