-RuralIndiaOnline.org The government’s ‘package’ responding to the crisis is a blend of callousness and cluelessness With his first speech on the coronavirus, Prime Minister Narendra Modi got us to scare evil spirits away by having people bang the hell out of their pots and pans. With his second, he scared the hell out of all of us. With not a word on how the public, particularly the poor, are to access food and other...
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Senior citizens, widows demand pension hike before elections
-The Hindu Shanti Devi, a 70-year-old widow, spends her days cleaning houses in Okhla to earn a meagre sum as she has not got her government pension for over two years. “I went to the social welfare office. I showed them my passbook, my Aadhaar card, but they just gave me a slip saying my pension has been stopped and told me to approach the local MLA,” she says, pulling a...
More »A rural stimulus: On MGNREGA Wage Hike
-The Hindu Putting more money in the hands of rural households will stir up the economy The government’s statistical machinery has begun work on revising the indices that capture the trends in consumer prices experienced in rural India. This opens up the prospect for an upward revision in the wages paid out to workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). The current national average wage is just about...
More »Government to peg MGNREGA wages to inflation in bid to hike incomes -Priscilla Jebaraj
-The Hindu Stimulus measure to link pay to consumer price index with annual revision. Staring at a slump in rural demand and a slowdown in the rural economy, the Centre plans to inject more money into the UPA’s flagship Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme by linking wages under the Act to an updated inflation index, which will be revised annually. It hopes this will increase wages, thus increasing...
More »Adopt a green growth strategy to boost the sluggish automobile sector
Among the measures announced by the Union Finance & Corporate Affairs Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman on 23rd August, 2019 to arrest economic downturn, the following are noteworthy: * Allow Bharat Stage IV (BS-IV) vehicles (which are purchased till 31st March, 2020) to remain operational for the entire period of registration; * Government shall lift the ban on purchase of new vehicles for replacing all old vehicles by its various departments; *...
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