-The Hindu Programme Officer in every State should help workers get UIDAI numbers, says Ministry The Ministry of Rural Development on Tuesday directed the States not to deny workers job cards under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act for non-possession of either bank/post office account numbers or the Aadhaar card. The instructions, a copy of which is available with The Hindu, say it is the responsibility of the MGNREGA Programme Officer...

-The Hindu Following the Supreme Court asking the government to clarify the structure of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to ascertain the legal validity of the agreements UIDAI had entered into with States, the next hearing is slated for Tuesday. Jean Dreze, eminent economist, had filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court taking up the matter related to the denial of NREGA wages in Jharkhand as a few labourers do...

-BBC A survey done earlier this year shows that public facilities in the poorest regions of India have steadily expanded, improving the lives of people there, writes development economist Jean Dreze. Once upon a time, not so long ago, public facilities in the poorest districts of India were few and far between. Most people were left to their own devices and they lived in the shadow of hunger, insecurity and exploitation, with no...

-The Business Standard NGOs have been asked to run MGNREGS in the country's 184 most backward blocks Will handing over the management of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) ensure the scheme works? The rural development ministry seems to think so, at least in Naxal-hit areas. Under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, NGOs are allowed to run the scheme, provided gram panchayats run...

-The Business Standard Currently wages are linked to CPI AL Mahendra Dev who heads the new committee set up by the Rural Development Ministry to determine a new index for NREGA wages said that his job is not to engineer an increase in wages to suit political interests. My job is to find a suitable index for NREGA wages based on which a new baseline wage can be fixed for 2014,...