-The Times of India JAIPUR: Across the country, payments worth Rs 9,124 crore are yet to be paid for work done in the 2016-17 financial year under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). This comes at a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi has created incentive schemes for rewarding those using the digital payment platform. Only days ago, 20-year-old Maharashtra student Shradha Mengshette was surprised to win Rs1...

The focus on MGNREGA got renewed when the Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley during the presentation of Union Budget 2017-18 increased allocation under the programme to Rs. 48,000 crore (B.E.), up from Rs. 47,499 crore (R.E.) in 2016-17. However, it has been noticed by the Inclusive Media for Change team that nearly Rs. 9,748.7 crore of due payment during the last financial year is still pending, as on 2 April,...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: CBSE schools will have to use NCERT textbooks from the 2017-18 academic session. The move to make National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) study materials mandatory for all Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) schools across the country is expected to standardise the curriculum across schools in the country. The decision was taken at a review meeting chaired by Union minister for human resource...

-NDTV The "highest ever allocation" to NREGA (which also led to it trending on Twitter)  in the Union Budget has provided a useful opportunity to raise some pressing issues related to the implementation of the scheme. It is natural, and welcome, that the government turn to NREGA to provide much-needed relief to those whose already precarious lives have been disrupted by demonetization, a man-made economic disaster. Widespread reports of job losses...

-Frontline.in In the latest Global Hunger Index, India is bracketed in the category of countries where hunger levels are “serious”. But the policy responses on hunger and malnutrition in the country have been inadequate and faulty. In the second week of October, a few media reports in India highlighted significant data pertaining to global hunger. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) had released its Global Hunger Index (GHI), rating 118...