-The Telegraph The Prime Minister today expressed surprise that “concurrent evaluation” of the rural job scheme was “not in good shape” and asked Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia to “apply his mind to making good this deficiency”. Concurrent evaluation is an assessment of a scheme’s impact, strength and weaknesses while it is being implemented, as distinct from the annual CAG audit or a post-mortem. Its objective is to identify problems...

-The Economic Times The positive impact on agricultural wages and distress migration from rural areas not withstanding, the government's flagship rural employment scheme, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, leaves a lot to be desired for. This is evident from the rural development ministry's compendium of more than 100 major research papers on the programme, MGNREGA Sameeksha. The slim 120-odd page volume, which is to be released by the Prime Minister...

-Live Mint After years of denial about problems in its flagship social welfare programme, the MGNREGS, the government has awoken to the need for an honest debate on the subject After years of denial about problems in its flagship social welfare programme, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Scheme (MGNREGS), the government has awoken to the need for an honest debate on the subject. On Saturday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made some...

-The Telegraph Beggars can’t be choosers — not even when it comes to quitting. The Centre plans to photograph and collect the fingerprints of the country’s estimated 7.3 lakh beggars for a proposed national database to launch a scheme aimed at ending the practice and offering sources of livelihood. The Union ministry of social justice is overseeing the project and has asked states to furnish details on beggars for the database. “A rehabilitation package...

-The Telegraph A panel that approved NCERT textbooks in 2006 has expressed “dissatisfaction” at a review committee report suggesting 21 controversial cartoons should be deleted. The national monitoring committee (NMC), co-chaired by academics such as Mrinal Miri and G.P. Deshpande, had approved all new school textbooks in 2006. But a few cartoons in some political science textbooks had drawn criticism from politicians. The NCERT had then set up a committee under the Indian...