A thinking government, regional or central, would ensure sustainable wages for skilled artisans and help them market the handcrafted products, instead of letting them join the NREGS queue. The design and execution of the much-touted National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) are likely to leave a lasting impact on some areas of our economy. Surely, the prototype version did not foresee that it would act as a catalyst for changes that...

-The Business Standard   Only anecdotal evidence has been available so far to back the assertion that there has been a sharp rise in agricultural wages. Now, field data bear out the trend. Collected by the Shimla-based Labour Bureau, these numbers show a roughly 50 per cent cumulative rise in rural labour wages in the past two years. The increase in Andhra Pradesh has been assessed at over 40 per cent...

CHHATTISGARH, India, 6 May 2011 – When Pausha Madharia, 16, speaks, she gives voice to the hopes, dreams and fears of every child in the Indian State of Chhattisgarh. Standing before the State Assembly recently, she shared her concerns about child labour, discrimination faced by young girls and the troubles that some students encounter when they’re simply trying to attend school. Pausha told legislators that drunken men sprawled on the road...

Some 10 lakh to 30 lakh migrant labourers take up skilled or semi-skilled work in Kerala. THE State Bank of India has a branch near the Raj Bhavan in Thiruvananthapuram, in a by-lane on the avenue leading to the Kowdiar Palace, the residence of the former maharajas of Travancore. It is a cosy little place on the first floor of a nondescript building, and the clientele includes the rich and...

A seven-state survey on rural internet awareness revealed that close to 84% were ignorant of the medium’s existence. Of the ones who did know about it, 85% used the net only to access emails, 13% to know about the latest farming techniques and 8% to look up fertilisers, among other uses. We can acknowledge that internet penetration so far has been weak; but the past is not a guide to...