-The Times of India BHUBANESWAR: A newborn baby girl was found alive on Saturday morning after being buried in a manure heap at Shyamsundarpur village in Jajpur district. This incident stunned the people of the state. Child rights activists said the state needs to do more campaigns to save the girl children. Campaign Against Child Labour state convener Sudhir Kumar Sabat said the state government claims that it has sealed nursing homes...

-TheWire.in In Gujarat’s Chhota Udaipur, MNREGA has helped villagers increase their earnings, improved connectivity in the area and led to higher farm yields. In the ubiquitous environment of the withdrawal of the welfare state across the globe, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) in India stands out as a critical and unique intervention. MNREGA is a social safety net that guarantees 100 days of employment to every rural household...

-The Hindu The ongoing repercussions of the government’s decision to demonetise high-value currency notes are being felt in particular by cash-intensive sectors such as the microfinance industry, according to microfinance company Satin Creditcare. “It’s been a pretty tough time (post demonetisation),” H.P. Singh, chairman and managing director of Satin Creditcare, said in an interview. “The cash supply position has been very bad in the northern states of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab… in both...

-The Hindu The unorganised manufacturing sector should be reoriented towards non-household units to provide efficiency gains. Ever since E.F. Schumacher, a British economist, published in 1973 his book Small is Beautiful, implying that small units are better in terms of performance indicators and labour absorption, several studies have endorsed the same idea and argued in favour of promoting small units. Stretching the argument a little further, it may be emphasised that small...

-The Telegraph Nagpur: A special investigation team will probe the alleged harassment of poor women borrowers in Maharashtra by loan recovery agents of micro-finance institutions, the state government announced today after month-long street protests and an Assembly debate. Junior home minister Deepak Kesarkar assured an agitated Assembly that the state was considering a law similar to one Andhra Pradesh had enacted in 2011 to regulate the MFIs' lending and loan recovery practices. About...