-CaravanMagazine.in Political realities blunt Narendra Modi’s attack on the NREGA At the end of December 2015, the central rural development ministry was in a state of panic. Nine of India’s largest states had declared drought in several districts. The scant kharif harvest meant many farm labourers, who might have been employed on fields, went without work. Water was so scarce that many farms weren’t sowing a winter crop, further diminishing employment...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's event dashes farmer's dreams -Baishali Adak
-India Today Farmers along the Yamuna have claimed that Sri Sri's Art of Living Foundation forcibly acquired land from them for an event at a low compensation. New Delhi: This comes not from areas like Beed or Vidarbha where distressed farmers commit suicide every year, but the National Capital Region itself. While a mega-show has been planned for Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's Art of Living (AOL) Foundation event in farmland along the...
More »Unequal by birth: time to break the vicious cycle -K Srinath Reddy
-The Hindu We cannot permit gross inequality-linked deprivation to leave its malign signature on the lives of those who are yet to come. As long as the problems of the Poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of the markets and financial speculation, and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution can be found for the world’s problems. Inequality is the root of social ills. —...
More »Budget 2016, through a prism of the Poor -Brinda Karat
-The Indian Express Gamlina’s response is just one example of how distant this government is from the lives of the Poor and how tokenistic its schemes are. Gamlina Soren, an elected panchayat member in Jharkhand, sounded upset. She had been told by a local BJP functionary that gas cylinders were going to be “gifted” to Poor women by the Centre but that they must have a BPL card. “But most Poor Adivasi...
More »Jaitley is Carrying Forward a Deeply Flawed Health Insurance Program -Subhashish Bhadra
-TheWire.in The message coming out of finance minister Arun Jaitley’s budget this year is that the rural economy is back at the heart of policy-making. One of the highlights of the budget was the announcement of the ‘Health Protection Scheme’, under which Poor households will be provided with an annual cover of Rs. 1 lakh to protect them from health-related financial shocks. This marks a significant expansion of the Rashtriya Swasthya...
More »