-Economic and Political Weekly State intervention in India to expand Financial Inclusion to rural areas has had an interesting history. It has moved away from building state-led institutions to setting policy that pushed Financial Inclusion through non-state agencies as well. While identity, de-duplication, and authentication were issues that affected the pace of Financial Inclusion, they were not the most significant problems to be fixed. By allowing the Aadhaar project to set...
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Messing with a good thing -Pramathesh Ambasta
-The Financial Express MGNREGA must be tweaked in implementation, not design. Before his tragic demise, the Union minister for rural development, Gopinath Munde, gave a clear indication of the new government's priorities on MGNREGA. Both these priorities are vital: using the programme for the creation of productive assets to combat drought and poverty and ensuring timely payment of wages. More than two decades of liberalisation and high economic growth have left India...
More »Reinforcing the welfare agenda -Harsh Mander
-Live Mint Voters who gave the Congress its worst drubbing did not reject its welfare agenda, but its performance There are many who interpret the emphatic rejection of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and the significant endorsement of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the elections of 2014 as a mandate to end the architecture of rights-based legislation for social and economic welfare constructed during the 10-year UPA regime. Commentators opposed...
More »Maharashtra's insurance scheme for orchard owners draws angry protests-Aparna Pallavi
-Down to Earth Too high a premium for too little cover Maharashtra government appears to have learnt no lesson at all from the hailstorms that lashed the entire state in March this year, and yet again lashed several districts in May, if its new decision to include three orchard crops - orange, sweet lime and guava - in its Weather Based Crop Insurance Scheme (WBCIS) on an experimental basis during the current...
More »Gujarat’s inclusive growth-Surjit S Bhalla
-The Indian Express From high farm growth to wages for the disadvantaged, even their employment levels, Gujarat comes out on top. Both the opinion polls and the bookies suggest that Narendra Modi will be the next prime minister of India. There is a constant but healthy debate in the media about the likely pros and cons of a Modi administration. For each assertion made by the BJP, there is a counter presented....
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