-The Hindu BELAGAVI (Karnataka): Following directions from the State government to implement the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act to create employment opportunities to the needy in the drought-affected areas of the State, the Zilla Panchayat has launched a special drive to extend the benefit of the scheme to the unskilled workers in the district. Since unemployment in villages is one of the direct impacts of natural calamities such as the...

Two recent reports show that this social sector scheme has had a causal impact in improving lives, especially for women and children Fourteen million people escaped falling into poverty under the world’s largest anti-poverty programme, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). In 10 years of its existence, the scheme reduced poverty by 32 per cent. Recent data also shows that more women are drawing cash incomes, more children...

The Digital India Mission, launched by the NDA government, aims to connect 2.5 lakh village Panchayats with high speed broadband internet by December, 2016 so that citizens can access online services. However, available facts reveal that this is a difficult task to be accomplished. In rural areas, among the youth aged 14-29 about 82 percent do not know how to operate a computer. In urban areas, nearly 51 percent of youth...

Although MGNREGA has been looked upon with suspicion by the Government, industry as well as the landed farming class for various reasons including inefficiency, leakages, corruption, rise in rural wages, cost escalation etc., a new report reveals that the programme reduced poverty among its participants between 2004-05 and 2011-12 by providing employment. The report entitled Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act: A Catalyst for Rural Transformation has estimated that...

-Livemint.com The problem with the SECC is the absence of cross-tabulations showing the intersections between the seven deprivation sets The original intent of the Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC), whose findings for rural India were made public in June, was to collect information on economic and caste identifiers for access to subsidized food under the National Food Security Act of 2013, and to define a priority set with higher access and...