Ten bonded labourers from Orissa, including three women, were rescued from a hollow block unit in Tiruneermalai near Tambaram on Monday. Staff from the office of the Revenue Divisional Officer, Tambaram, rescued them with the help of two non-governmental organisations with police protection on Monday morning. They were brought to Tambaram and handed certificates identifying them as “victims of forced labour” that entitled them to government rehabilitation funds. They were also...

Suffering from extreme poverty and male oppression, the women of Darkali village in Madhya Pradesh, India, are now able to feed their families through employment under the MGNREGS. The Wages obtained under the Scheme help them augment the family resource base. Jashmabai is working under the punishing sun on an earthen dam in her village of Darkali, in Madhya Pradesh's Alirajpur district, being built under the government-funded Mahatma Gandhi National Rural...

Eleven women sarpanchs figure in the list of the 48 accused in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) fund scam in Gujarat’s Dahod taluka. Authorities, however, pointed out that the real culprits could be their husbands running the show by proxy on these reserved seats. Fatehsinh Pargi, a resident of Moti Shehra village in Fatehpura taluka, who brought the issue of non-payment of Wages and manipulation of job...

There was a perception that the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MHNREGA) will not work in this district. But a year down the line, many families are seeing it as a godsend opportunity to improve their livelihood by developing their small land holdings through this scheme, said DK District NREGA ombudsman Sheena Shetty. Taking charge as the ombudsman on Thursday at the zilla panchayat office here, Shetty told...

There is an interesting debate on food security and we should get the Planning Commission’s perspective on this. But as I write this, the Planning Commission Web site still does not have the mid-term appraisal, so Yojana Bhavan must still be polishing it. This column has, over time, taken the position that the food security programme is really important and a country growing as fast as India simply cannot ignore...