The political advantage enjoyed by the Congress for bringing the rural job scheme is under threat with five of its states underpaying workers, a revelation that has prompted the leadership against challenging a court order seeking parity between MGNREGA wages and minimum wages in a state.  The Karnataka high court recently ruled that wages under MGNREGA should at least be equal to the notified farm wages. The ruling would result in...

When it comes to property rights in matrimony, gender matters. The issue of property rights for women within a marriage has long been an area of concern across the world. While Maharashtra is now considering the idea of granting women equal rights in their husband's property, women's rights were being asserted in the US way back in 1771. Almost two-and-a-half centuries ago, New York brought in a law preventing a...

-The Telegraph   Bengal education minister Bratya Basu today said the state government would next month notify rules to implement the right to education act, a requirement for central assistance to set up elementary schools. Basu, who was here for a conference of state education ministers on the one-and-a-half-year-old law, said the rules were “almost ready”. “We will notify the rules by November. Then we will demand the additional grants that we have not...

The death recently in Nairobi of Kenyan environmental crusader and 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai brings to mind the work of another development activist and Nobel peace laureate (2006), Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh. Their fields were different but their Goals were the same: empowering poor, ordinary women for social and economic growth. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that this year’s Nobel Peace Prize has gone to three women who are...

-The United Nations   Young men in Central and South America and Southern and Central Africa are most at risk of being killed in cases of homicide, while women face an increased likelihood of being murdered in domestic violence, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in a report unveiled today.   Evidence points to rising homicide rates in Central America and the Caribbean, which are “near crisis point,” according to...