-NewsYaps.com In 2005, the Parliament of India enacted a landmark legislation known as the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). The aim of this law, renamed ‘Mahatma Gandhi NREGA' in 2009, was to create a legally enforceable guarantee of employment for any adult from rural India willing to do casual manual labour on local public works at a statutory minimum wage. Public works programmes have long been implemented in India...

-Live Mint Mint examines why millions of women are missing from farms, factories, colleges, and offices in India, which has one of the lowest ratios of working women in the world Mumbai: Every monsoon, minivans ferrying women labourers can be seen making their way from the small sleepy town of Wardha to Waifad village, 18 kilometres away. Urban workers from Wardha have come to occupy an integral part of Waifad's farm...

-The Hindu Increased rebel activity made it impossible for anyone to commute outside Jagargunda unless they left permanently, as the original inhabitants and the new entrants were marked as Salwa Judum supporters, and overtly boycotted by the Maoist-controlled villages surrounding the enclave. In Jagargunda, a large village in south Chhattisgarh, the villagers have been waiting for their winter rations for more than two months. Ordinarily, this would not be news but Jagargunda...

-The Hindu     The critical issue in India, where the pentavalent vaccine is being rolled out, is raising the coverage levels of immunisation "Immunisation is not an election issue. It should be." Seth Berkley, CEO, GAVI Alliance, is not known for mincing his words. Throw in the immense experience he brings in from the area of vaccination, and he is easily the most articulate global proponent of immunisation. In India recently to meet...

-The Times of India AHMEDABAD: In the age of khaps, village panchayats generally hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons, especially on matters of gender. But the sarpanch of Fatehgadh in Amreli is an exception. He wants to see more daughters playing on the streets of his village. Rattled by the scarce number of girls - the village has only 50 girls against 200 boys in the 0-18 years' age bracket...