RAM KARUTURI, the world’s largest rose grower, calls it a situation that needs immediate intervention. Else, he is sure the rush of Indians to Africa will ebb to a trickle, which, in turn, could have serious implications as ethnic tensions with the locals are slowly, but steadily, rising in some parts of the continent. The hub of the crisis is Gambela, one of Ethiopia’s nine states, for long starved of investment....
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Rural employment guarantee scheme: gaps in media coverage by S Viswanathan
“This Employment Guarantee Act is the most significant legislation of our times in many ways. For the first time, rural communities have been given not just a development programme but a regime of rights…The NREGA gives employment, gives income, gives a livelihood, and it gives a chance to live a life of self-respect and dignity.” — Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the launch of NREGS The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme...
More »Appu And Shera by Jyoti Punwani
In the good old days, there were the Asian Games under Indira Gandhi. Inaugurated by the Empress on her own birthday, November 19, 1982, they seem like a fairy tale now. No leaking roofs weeks before the show; no front-page shockers about crores paid to shady firms; everything going like clockwork under Her Majesty’s eagle eye. Definitely no portly, shifty-eyed Suresh Kalmadi. At that time, there was no Organising Committee. Under...
More »Govt, UNDP aim to make job scheme effective by Ruhi Tewari
The government is collaborating with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to ensure that India’s flagship welfare programme leads to a tangible improvement in the human development index among the scheme’s beneficiaries. UNDP and the Union government have launched a pilot project aimed at making the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) more efficient and effective by coordinating it with other development programmes. “The idea is to leverage this massive...
More »Labouring for the Commonwealth Games by CP Surendran
Behind Delhi's radical makeover for the Commonwealth Games are 150,000 migrants labourers toiling hard to meet the October deadline. TOI-Crest gives this silent workforce a name and a face. Thirty-five-year old Vijay is from Sagar village in Madhya Pradesh. His thekedar, who makes regular trips to the villages to round up skilled and unskilled labourers, had told him he'd be working on the beautification of Delhi University roads under the...
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