Unique features of the public wage programme turn it into a magnet for women More women than men work under the national programme that guarantees employment to rural people. In the current fiscal till October, women availed of more than 50 per cent of employment created under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). Their participation has been growing since the inception of the Act in 2006. This is...

A lot has been said and written about the visit of Barack Obama, the President of USA to India. The corporate media was in the usual over-enthusiastic drive to bring to its readers and viewers all minute details about his visit from where he stayed and what he ate to how many warships, planes and cars accompanied him and how a whopping $200 million was spent per day for the...

Bina Agarwal , director and professor of economics, Institute of Economic Growth, has written a pioneering new book, Gender and Green Governance, that explores a central question: If women had adequate representation in forestry institutions, would it make a difference to them, their communities and forests as a national resource? Pamela Philipose spoke to Agarwal: Why has access to forests been such a conflict-ridden issue? This is not surprising. Forests constitute not...

The three partners of the Left alliance will agitate for implementation of the recommendations of the D Bandopadyaya Commission on land reforms. Releasing the manifesto of the CPM here on Wednesday, its state secretary, Vijaykant Thakur, said that the Left alliance would also ask the government to bring in drastic land reforms on the pattern on Tripura, West Bengal and Kerala. He claimed, "In our manifesto, the Left parties have given alternative...

In three districts of Haryana, they have been agitating against the land acquisition policy of the State government. WHEN farmers of western Uttar Pradesh took to the streets protesting against the acquisition of their lands and demanding a just compensation package from the State government, the central leadership of the Congress was quick to cite the example of Haryana, where, according to United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi, the best policies...