-The Telegraph The government has not institutionalized SAUs which are at times intimidated when it comes to accessing data on various programmes The auditing agility of government programmes seems to have gained strength. After the recent floods in Assam, the state planned to carry out a social audit of relief measures to look into corruption and bribery. This is the first time that any government is trying to reinforce a social audit...

-The Indian Express The Indian Express has found several cases of the pre-Matric scholarship being illegally diverted by middlemen in Bihar as well. Gaya, Saharsa: The Scholarship scam, in which money meant for poor minority students is siphoned off, is not limited to jharkhand, but has crossed state borders. Investigating entries, district by district, on the National Scholarship Portal (NSP) and matching them with beneficiary bank accounts in the Public Finance Management System...

-The Indian Express On Sunday, jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren reacted to the findings by ordering a probe and promising to revamp the verification system. Chief Secretary Sukhdev Singh said verification “has been stopped” till the probe is completed. Ranchi: On October 31, barely 48 hours after The Indian Express told him that official records had listed 180 beneficiaries from his school for the Centre’s pre-Matric scholarship for minority students, the principal...

Multidimensional poverty is about non-monetary poverty and is strongly associated with the challenges of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Although previously defined only in monetary terms, poverty is now understood to include the lived reality of people’s experiences and the multiple deprivations they face. India’s multidimensional headcount ratio (H) i.e. the proportion or incidence of people (within a given population) who experience multiple deprivations has reduced from 55.1 percent to...

-Livemint.com Government data claims that more than 10 million people went home after the lockdown, although experts and civil society groups say the number is much larger. Migrants who went home during the lockdown saw their incomes drop by as much as 94% and an overwhelming majority of them are ready to return to the cities, a survey by a team of retired government officers and academics found. The survey on covid’s impact...