Aruna Roy , member of National Advisory Council, is in the thick of preparations for a truck yatra and dharna to mobilise people for demands relating to rights of weaker sections and systemic improvement of governance.  Bharat Dogra  spoke to her about the need for this mobilization: The general impression is that Rajasthan has a better record of governance. I agree that Rajasthan has an above-average record in the implementation of NREGS,...

Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MG-NREGA) has been in news mainly due to corruption or inefficiency. The country has spent close to Rs 40,000 crore this fiscal but a large number of urban middle class people and opinion leaders don’t know what to make of it. Cynicism apart, the rights-based scheme has proved to be a game-changer in rural India despite mixed success. The scheme has been relatively...

India has long been simultaneously a country of enormous wealth and desperate poverty. In recent decades, the distance has only grown between those who enjoy living standards comparable to the finest in the world, and the millions left far behind. Even as Indians crowd the lists of the world’s richest dollar billionaires, an estimated 200 million people sleep hungry. Half our children are malnourished and nearly a fifth severely so....

The Ministry of Rural Development is working on on several issues related to its most ambitious programme — the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). Six sub committees set up by the Central Employment Guarantee Council (CEGC), which was formed under the NREG Act (NREGA – the law enacted to implement the NREGS programme), have raised questions on issues ranging from the utility of work done through NREGS to transparency,...

“This Employment Guarantee Act is the most significant legislation of our times in many ways. For the first time, rural communities have been given not just a development programme but a regime of rights…The NREGA gives employment, gives income, gives a livelihood, and it gives a chance to live a life of self-respect and dignity.” — Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the launch of NREGS The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme...