-Business Standard/ India Spend Delays in wage payment have been a constant throughout MGNREGS implementation Bachcha Lal’s shirt hung loosely over his frail body, exposing his sunken collarbones, as he stood outside his straw-thatched home in central Uttar Pradesh’s (UP) Bundelkhand region. “They all rely on me,” he said, pointing towards his tubercular son, daughter-in-law and grand-daughter. Illiterate and a landless labourer, 65-year-old Lal makes about Rs 175 a day when he...

-The Indian Express Únion Budget 2018: Budget addresses the crises in agriculture. The devil is in the allocations All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”. In Anna Karenina, only if a person is satisfied on all counts will she be happy. The allocations in the budget cover every sector, with umpteen implications, and no person’s expectations can be fulfilled on all counts. While every...

-The Hindu Business Line Patna is attracting the young from the hinterland to its skilling centres, teaching them English and computer skills At first glance they look like cyber cafés with their bustling young boys and girls. But take a closer look and you will find students busy at their computers picking up English language and software skills. These small centres have popped up across the State Capital in shopping areas and residential...

-IANS The BJP and Congress had criticised AAP government in Delhi for spending Rs 526 crore on advertising its achievements in 2015. The Modi government has spent a whopping nearly Rs 3,755 crore in three and half years on its publicity till October this year, an RTI revealed on Friday. The expenditure on advertisements from April 2014 to October 2017 through electronic, print media and outdoor publicity is Rs 37,54,06,23,616, according to the RTI...

-TheWire A recent article claimed that the Modi government has significantly improved or tweaked the implementation of various schemes started by the UPA-II administration. But the numbers quoted need to be questioned. The Wire recently published an article titled ‘Modi May Have Repackaged 23 UPA Schemes But Most of them Are Working Better Now’. The authors’ main thesis is that even if the names of the government schemes have been changed or...