-The Hindustan Times Rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has taken his wrangle with finance minister P Chidambaram and agriculture minister Sharad Pawar over the Centre's job guarantee programme to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's court. Stung by their repeated assertions that the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) schemes were having a negative impact on the availability of farm labour, Ramesh shot a note to the PM to "respond to the concerns raised by...

-The Economic Times Rural Development minister Jairam Ramesh has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh explaining the positive impact of the rural employment guarantee programme on agricultural production. The note is in response to persistent claims by Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Agriculture minister Sharad Pawar that the rural employment scheme has adversely affected agriculture. Stressing on the positive impact of the UPA's employment programme, Ramesh has suggested that the Prime...

-The Times of India KOLKATA: While the country celebrates the seventh anniversary of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), Bengal continues to be one of the poor performers. The Paschimbanga Khet Majdoor Union alleges that a group of vested interests, "comprising landed farmers, industrialists and a section of the intelligentsia" were working in tandem to subvert the positives of NREGA in the state. The union, which has criticized both the...

-The Times of India While Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh waxed eloquent on the "success" of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) and called it a key instrument for "financial inclusion" at a government conference in New Delhi on Saturday, latest data reveal a picture of declining employment generation under the scheme. Even more startling: Jobs created for the most marginalized sections - dalits and adivasis - have...

-Economic and Political Weekly A cost-benefi t analysis by the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy of the benefits from Aadhaar integration with seven schemes throws up huge benefi ts that are based almost entirely on unrealistic assumptions. Further, the report does not take into account alternative technologies that could achieve the same or similar savings, possibly at lower cost. Reetika Khera (reetika.khera@gmail.com) is at the Institute of Economic Growth on...