India moved a step closer to implementing cash transfers of direct subsidies and social welfare payments after a high-level panel presented the blueprint for effecting it through an Aadhaar-based payment gateway. Accepting the report, which details how all payments and cash transfers can be made electronically, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee indicated that it will be the key to plug leakages and ensure more targeted spending under the government’s social welfare programmes. The...
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101 NREGA workers win compensation
-The Times of India In what is a first in Andhra Pradesh, 101 workers in Medak district have been awarded unemployment allowance to the tune of Rs 2 lakh for having been denied work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). The award is being seen as an assertion of wage earners' rights under the Act as this is the first time that they have earned compensation for not...
More »M’laya PDS to be computerized
-The Shillong Times Taking cognizance over malpractices prevailing in the Public Distribution System (PDS) in the State, the Government is planning to computerize the whole system to check the malaise. To achieve this objective, the State Government has already submitted a Detailed Project Report (DPR) amounting to Rs 43 crore for computerization of the Public Distribution System (PDS) to the Central Government. “We had submitted the DPR through the National Informatics Centre (NIC)...
More »Professor Arjun Appadurai, Goddard Professor of Media, Culture and Communication at New York University interviewed by Smruti Koppikar
Professor Arjun Appadurai is a Mumbaikar at heart; coming to the city is an annual PILgrimage for this internationally renowned cultural theorist and anthropologist. Appadurai, 62, who studied in Mumbai’s Elphinstone College, is currently Goddard Professor of Media, Culture and Communication at New York University. He has been consultant and advisor to a wide range of public and private foundations such as The Smithsonian. In his seminal work Disjuncture and...
More »Push for offload stick on airlines by Ananya Sengupta
Jeeja Ghosh, the disability activist who was forced off a Goa-bound flight because she suffers from cerebral palsy, joins a long list of passengers who have faced such humiliation. “What happened to Jeeja isn’t something new. For every Jeeja case that gets reported in the media, there are 10-15 others that don’t get reported. It is only through heavy fines and exemplary punishment that one can ensure that these incidents are...
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