-The Economic Times   States owe rural job seekers more than Rs 68 crore in unemployment dole, undermining the effectiveness of the government's flagship rural jobs guarantee scheme that has millions of workers in its fold. Workers enrolled under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) are entitled to unemployment allowance if they are not provided a job within 15 days of applying for it. Although the allowance is to...

The lone Indian activist on the 2011 TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world, Aruna Roy has been more successful than most,  when it comes to getting the government’s attention. The Chennai-born former bureaucrat who was an instrumental force behind the revolutionary Right to Information Act has also been credited by the government for “incorporating strong citizen entitlements” in the ambitious National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). A constant...

Despite the Rs 5,631 crore — to be the highest in the country, which the Mayawati government in Uttar Pradesh had spent under the MG-NREGA in 2010-11, but it failed to show any good work carried by it. Its not just Uttar Pradesh, but half of the states did not find any work worth to be nominated for a national award for best performing panchayats in implementation of NREGA in 2010-11. There...

-The Economic Times The government has told the Supreme Court that its flagship Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Act (MNREGA) is a social security safeguard and not an alternative employment avenue. Challenging the Karanataka High Court ruling on wages under the MGNREGA, the Centre has said that its flagship programme is a "supplement" and not a "replacement" for existing employment opportunities. Though meant as a dole, the MNREGA programme has more...

The popular impression is that starvation deaths happen mainly because the information about potential victims fails to reach authorities. But can it amount to murder if a starvation death is caused despite adequate warning? A recent Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) report tells us a story of corruption and negligence leading to starvation and death in Odisha. Worse still is the fact that many more villagers await the same fate...