The budget has allocated of total Rs160,887 crore, or 36.4% Plan allocation, to the social sector. The Bharat Nirman group of welfare schemes has together been allocated Rs58,000 crore. The income of workers and helpers at anganwadis, or government-run day-care centres, has been doubled. The move is expected to benefit nearly 2.2 million people. However, it has not been replicated for voluntary accredited social health activists of the National Rural...
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Food nod to Team Sonia by Radhika Ramaseshan
The budget is a “mixed bag” for the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council, said members. It promises to bring in the National Food Security bill that the Congress chief hopes will signpost UPA-II’s continuing commitment to social and economic inclusion in the way that the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act did UPA-I. But finance minister Pranab Mukherjee’s restatement of the Centre’s position on indexing MNREGA wages to the consumer price...
More »Not out of the woods yet by Ashish Kothari
The promise of the FRA remains largely unfulfilled, says a committee set up by the Ministries of Environment and Forests and Tribal Affairs. IT seems hard for a government used to controlling most of India's common lands to let go of them. Even though it has passed a law mandating more decentralised governance of forests, the government itself is proving to be the biggest obstacle in its implementation. Other than in...
More »NAC undermined by Praful Bidwai
By stubbornly overruling the National Advisory Council, the government risks defeating its purpose as a body that speaks for the poor and the disadvantaged. HAS the Manmohan Singh government begun to regard the National Advisory Council (NAC) as an adversary who should be undermined? Going by their exchanges on key issues such as food security, wages under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), and the implementation of the Scheduled Tribes...
More »Government allows Kheri tribals to collect forest produce by Ashish Tripathi
In a major victory for tribals of Lakhimpur Kheri living in 46 villages in and around the Dudhwa forest range, the state government has allowed them to collect forest produce required for their survival. It has also approved in principle the proposal to convert two forest villages -- Surma and Golbojhi situated in Dudhwa range into revenue villages. The tribals were fighting to get right on the forest produce since long,...
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