A fortnight after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said wages paid under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) would not be linked with minimum wages, Minister of State for Labour Harish Rawat today said NREGA was a flawed law, as it went against the Minimum Wages Act. Rawat told Business Standard the section in the law which contained a contradiction with the minimum wages Act made it a flawed piece of...

For Union minister C P Joshi the failure to handle the UPA goverment's flagship programme of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) resulted in his transition from rural development to surface transport. Joshi had not acted on a letter from Congress president Sonia Gandhi to raise MGNREGA wages and also stood in contempt of an Andhra Pradesh High Court order. Joshi was earlier seen as a trusted man...

It was bad enough that the National Advisory Council in its recommendation of October 2010 proposed a food security Bill that diluted the principle of a universal right to food. It is appalling now that the C. Rangarajan Committee seeks to truncate that proposal, and legally establish a narrowly targeted public distribution system on the grounds of feasibility. Their argument is a false argument for more reasons than one. First,...

Rajasthan's Jatawali village hosts a debate on census showing how rural India badly needs state help. An old couple in Jatavali village in Choumu tehsil of Jaipur were having an early lunch at noon with their daughter. The man had a roti and a large chunk of crumpled baati (baked wheat balls) and a fairly large bowl of dal. He was making little cakes of baati, dipping them in the dal...

Pachiammal's family has been fighting in court for what has been their land for two generations. They received the two-acre plot from the government, back in 1885, under the Panchami Scheme.   The scheme was brought in by the British during their rule over the Madras Presidency to empower Schedule Caste landless farmers.   Some years ago, it was forcibly taken over by a rich landlord who claims their dead parents owed him money. "We...