-The Indian Express Across the country, wage employment generated under the scheme has gone up from 32 crore person-days in April - May 2015 to 51 crore person-days in the corresponding months of 2016. Signalling an increase in uptake of MGNREGA work on the ground owing to drought as well as the slow revival of the scheme itself, the person-days generated in the first two months of the financial year has gone...

-Livemint.com Delays in payment and indifferent implementation, among other reasons, have blunted the programme’s effectiveness Procedural lapses have marred the implementation of the state-funded job guarantee programme aimed at alleviating rural distress in India, according to a review of the scheme in eight states by the rural development ministry. While delays in disbursal of funds for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) have held up wage payments in Madhya...

-NDTV New Delhi: The severe drought that has gripped the countryside was no flash in the pan; when the monsoon of 2015 recorded poor rainfall, it should have set the alarm bells ringing for policymakers at least a year ago. So what exactly did the Centre do to tackle the crisis? To seek answers, NDTV filed a series of Right To Information or RTI applications in key Central ministries meant to tackle drought,...

Although public goods are meant for everyone to enable living life with human dignity, certain groups are systematically deprived to access them, says a new report from the Centre for Equity Studies -- a NGO based in Delhi. Put differently, not all sections of the society are able to access or enjoy public goods and services on an equal footing, despite social justice being one of the key provisions of...

-Livemint.com New Delhi: Back from a walk through drought-affected parts of the country, Yogendra Yadav, political scientist and co-founder of non-profit Swaraj Abhiyan, speaks on state compliance of Supreme Court orders, a booming private water market in Marathwada, and why farmer movements are weakest at a time when agrarian distress is at its peak. Edited excerpts from an interview: * You just came back from a trip to Bundelkhand and Marathwada. What...