-The Indian Express Jairam Ramesh’s criticism of NREGA highlights that a rights-based approach to poverty reduction cannot work without improving implementation The clamour for the right to social pensions is another attempt to deal with the Indian state’s inability to provide adequate social protection to its poorest citizens through targeted programmes. India’s vulnerable continue to be excluded from social safety nets. The multi-layered problems with social welfare schemes can be summarised in...

-The Hindustan Times The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probing the multi-crore National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) scam on Saturday registered a fresh case relating to selective appointment of more than 100 chief medical officers (CMOs) in 72 districts of Uttar Pradesh. The appointments — in total disregard of rules — were made by then ministers Babu Singh Kushwaha and Anant Kumar Mishra in collusion with private contractors to ensure that...

Jatav residents of Ramgarh in U.P. resist attempts by members of a powerful community to grab their land by violent means. IN what could be considered one of the worst incidents of vendetta against Dalits in the National Capital Region (NCR), members of the Dalit Jatav community were beaten up brutally by some members of the dominant Gujjar community in Ramgarh village in the Greater Noida area of Uttar Pradesh...

-Zee News Raisen: Protests over wheat procurement and shortage of jute bags at Bareli town near here took a violent turn on Monday with a farmer killed in police firing and about 40 farmers and some officials injured. An indefinite curfew has been imposed in the town. Former sarpanch Hari Singh Prajapati was killed in police firing while three others sustained bullet injuries, police said. Raisen Collector Mohanlal Meena and SP...

-PTI Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has said that every single grain of wheat would be purchased from the farmers in the state under the wheat procurement process.  The farmers should maintain calm without getting misled by any wrong propaganda, the Chief Minister said adding that the remaining farmers will be registered within three days and the wheat would be purchased from them.  Chouhan said this while addressing the commissioners and...