-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Overriding objections raised by senior officials, rural development minister Nitin Gadkari has ordered far-reaching changes in the job guarantee scheme (MGNREGS) which has provided seasonal work to one in three rural households in the last eight years. Documents obtained under the Right to Information (RTI) Act by activists show file notings by a senior official in the ministry arguing that Gadkari's announcements run contrary to the...
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Where Do They Squat? -Santosh Mehrotra
-Outlook Build toilets. But more important, get communities to change ways. Vidya Balan, the Bollywood star and ambassador of the Indian government's programme for building household toilets, asks the mother-in-law who is busy toying with her bahu's ghunghat at the wedding ceremony: "Do you have a toilet at home for the daughter-in-law to use?" Mum-in-law replies: "No." Vidya then asks her, "Then why are you extending her ghunghat so much when you...
More »Still parched
-The Indian Express The four-month monsoon season ended last week leaving a deficit of 12 per cent. The authorities have calLED it a below-normal monsoon and the worst in the past five years, but skim the data and the picture seems even more sobering. Nearly one-third of the 36 met divisions in the country have received deficient rainfall, with Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh - which are major agriculture regions -...
More »How Women Pay the Price for Population Control -Ruhi Kandhari
-Tehelka Despite the serious toll it takes on women's health, female sterilisation remains the most prevalent form of contraception in India. While memories of the 21 months of Emergency in 1975-77, imposed by the then prime minister Indira Gandhi, survives even today in the minds of Indian men as the fear of forced sterilisation, the country's population control policies have shifted over the years since then to target the politically less...
More »Only 12% deficit in monsoon rainfall: Why is the picture of rural economy still uncertain? -Jayashree Bhosale & Avinash Celestine
-The Economic Times Dinkar Patil, a farmer from Buldhana district in Vidarbha, Maharashtra, normally cultivates cotton on his 13-acre farm land. This year, however, he has skipped the cotton crop and opted for soyabean and tur dal. "The rainfall started late. I did not cultivate cotton because of the delayed rains and the huge increase in cost of cultivation of the crop," said Patil. He is expecting a fall of about...
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