The government’s flagship rural employment scheme is struggling to make an impact as the capacity building in the scheme has slowed down to a crawl. The overall fund utilisation in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Gurantee Act, or MGNREGA, has plummeted to 60%. Most states were unable to utilise even half of the funds slotted for administrative expenses, stalling administrative reforms that are expected to increase the efficiency of the...
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City falls, rises too, census 2011 | slips on literacy rank, sex ratio improves over 2001 by Pankaj Dhiman
Authorities in Chandigarh don't seem to be doing enough for raising literacy rate as compared to other states and union territories. In 2011, the city came down to eighth position on the all-India literacy list. In the 2001 census, it had the sixth highest literacy rate in the country. This happened in spite of increase in overall literacy here. Though Chandigarh has achieved the Planning Commission target of 85% literacy, it couldn't...
More »Food Deficit in Kerala: Exploring the Possibility of NREGS by AD Manikandan
Kerala has a long history of foodgrains deficit, especially in rice. For instance, deficit in rice has increased steadily in the State from 45 per cent to 85 per cent between 1957 and 2008. However, not enough attention has been paid to mitigate the food insecurity problem in the State in the context where there has been a large scale decline in the area and production of paddy. This paper...
More »Towards a TB-free India by Ramya Kannan
Tuberculosis continues to be a major health problem in India. But the unveiling of a new test to diagnose TB and drug resistance on World Tuberculosis Day (March 24) brings some hope into a bleak scenario. Last Thursday, on World Tuberculosis Day, for the first time since the 1880s there was probably some justifiable cause for jubilation. After centuries of grappling with sputum smear microscopy, developed way back in the 1880s,...
More »New draft of MFI Bill to give more teeth to RBI by Dinesh Unnikrishnan
The earlier draft covered only non-NBFC MFIs incorporated as trusts and non-governmental organizations that constitute a very small part of the total industry The proposed microfinance Bill for governing India’s Rs. 22,000 crore microlending industry is set to give more teeth to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to regulate larger microfinance institutions (MFIs). This will be done by removing such entities from the purview of laws enacted by state governments...
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