-The Indian Express Moves to dilute labour-material ratio in MGNREGA and focus exclusively on select backward blocks will adversely impact rural poor. Before the general elections, free-market fundamentalists had lobbied fiercely to reshape so-called wasteful social-sector expenditures. Primary among their targets was the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), which, according to them, should become an unconditional cash transfer scheme. Post-elections, the late Gopinath Munde's espousal of the MGNREGA went...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Making MGNREGA deliver better -Rajiv Kumar
-The Financial Express The proposed MGNREGA changes can help plug the leakages and enhance agriculture productivity There is good news about the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (MGNREGA) scheme. Recent press reports reveal that the rural development minister, Nitin Gadkari, has instructed lowering of the mandatory share for unskilled wages in total expenditure from the current 60% to 51%. He has also directed, quite rightly, that 50% of the expenditure be...
More »Most Indian women engaged in unpaid housework -Rukmini S
-The Hindu NSSO urged to use time-use surveys to ascertain homemakers' economically productive activity Close to two out of every three Indian women are, in their prime working years, primarily engaged in unpaid housework, new NSSO data shows. This phenomenon, on the rise over the last decade, is least common in the southern and north-eastern States and most common in the northern States, Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh in particular. In data released on...
More »US to launch fresh review of India's patent regime -Sidhartha
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Within days of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's return from the US, the US Trade Representative (USTR) has launched a fresh offensive against India's intellectual property rights (IPR) regime, a move that may lead to the government going slow on a bilateral dialogue with Washington. On Tuesday, USTR will launch what it calls an "out-of-cycle review" (OCR) of India's IPR regime, following a report released earlier this...
More »Fighting India’s silent epidemic -Soumya Swaminathan and Chapal Mehra
-The Hindu Tackling TB requires both strengthening the public sector and engaging the private sector Over 60 per cent of all Indians seek health care in the private sector according to India's last National Family Health Survey. This undoubtedly makes the private sector the largest provider of health services in India. The government health system, though vast and well-intentioned, continues to be overburdened with multiple challenges including long waiting hours, an ageing...
More »