-The Economic Times Vimla Nishad bends on her small chulha and tries to light a fire. Her two-room house fills up with smoke and her two-year-old son starts coughing. The firewood is damp as it has been raining the whole day so it is taking longer to light up. She looks around nervously as it is 8 pm and she has to get the dinner going. Sitting in one corner of...

-ILO News Despite real wage growth, inequality, informality and gender wage gap persist. New Delhi: While India’s economy in the past two decades has seen an annual average GDP rate of 7 % — low pay and inequality persist according to the India Wage Report: Wage policies for decent work and inclusive growth , published by the International Labour Organization. The NSSO estimates also indicate that the real average daily wage has doubled...

-Livemint.com Rural development secretary Amarjeet Sinha on how MGNREGS has evolved since 2006 to result in income, acreage, water tables, productivity and fodder availability Agrarian distress and rural distress are terms used interchangeably, but the rural economy today is very different from what it was many years ago, given the diversification of rural incomes and hence incorrect to think one means the other, says Amarjeet Sinha, secretary, ministry of rural development. In...

-Livemint.com India’s richest districts are situated along the western coastline while the poorest are clustered in the easternmost parts of the country, shows analysis Mumbai: Where do the affluent in India live? That’s the million dollar question consumer goods firms, marketers, and analysts often struggle to answer because of patchy and unreliable data. For the first time in India, an official data source provides detailed data on household assets and consumer durables that...

-TheWire.in It will greatly bring down the poverty reduction impact of the programme, harm the construction of much-needed rural infrastructure and dramatically diminish the labourers’ bargaining power vis-à-vis the farmers. At the recent fourth governing council meeting of the NITI Aayog, the government announced the formation of a sub-group of chief ministers to propose ways of linking the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) with agricultural activities. The group is headed...