-The Hindu Governments can provide direct cash transfers while creating conditions for employment With the Congress promising through the Nyuntam Aay Yojana (NYAY) scheme ?6,000 every month to the poorest 20% of households if voted to power, Mahendra Dev and Pronab Sen talk of the importance and problems of direct cash transfers. Providing social protection is important even as governments try to create conditions for income-generating activities, they say in a discussion...

-The Indian Express With effect from April 1, rural NREG labourers in six states and Union territories will see no annual increase in their daily wages this financial year while workers in another 15 states will get a daily wage hike of between Re 1 and Rs 5. New Delhi: For the year 2019-20, the Ministry of Rural Development notified state-wise wages for unskilled manual workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National...

-Down to Earth High debts, sexual exploitation, gender disparity, caste discrimination and exclusion from the political process continue to bedevil these mostly Dalit women An eye-opening study released on March 19, 2019, on the plight of rural women labourers in Punjab, has brought to centre-stage, the issue of the failure of India’s political system to deliver after more than 72 years of independence. The document points at the marginalisation of these women, overwhelmingly...

-The Indian Express According to the Central Statistics Office, there were 24.95 crore households in India in 2011. If every household in the bottom 20 per cent is eligible for this income, this translates into a total expenditure of about Rs 3.6 lakh crore annually. When Congress president Rahul Gandhi announced that his party, if voted to power, would offer a minimum income of Rs 72,000 a year for the poorest 20...

-The Indian Express PATIALA: After studying in-depth the exploitation of women labourers in rural Punjab, especially the dalits, a team from Punjabi University in Patiala has laid bare some startling facts about the high debts, sexual exploitation, gender disparity, caste discrimination and exclusion from the political process of these women. The study ‘Socio-Economic Conditions and Political Participation of Rural Women Labourers in Punjab’ by Professor Gian Singh, an expert on rural economics,...