-The Indian Express MGNREGA is not the best instrument to help MSMEs in urban and rural areas. Mixing up its objectives can only lead to chaos with no value addition Newspaper reports suggest that a Group of Ministers (GoM) on employment, whose report is not yet available in the public domain, has made draft recommendations including some on MGNREGA. Their suggestions include merging MGNREGA with skill development programmes and using its funds...

-Newsclick.in Additional funds for MSMEs and MGNREGA are going to create enough jobs, but the economy will remain in doldrums. There has been much mutual patting on the back and self-congratulation, after the Narendra Modi government announced two policy measures that could have a direct impact on job creation. These were: a special credit line of Rs.3 lakh crore for MSMEs (medium, small and micro enterprises) and an additional allocation of Rs.40,000...

-The Indian Express The draft proposes that the land pooling model which is used in building greenfield airports can be used in agriculture to enable corporatisation, which will create demand for skilled labourers. A LAND pooling model enabling corporatisation of agriculture, opening up EPF and ESIC for the unorganised sector, merging the MNREGA with skill development programmes to create a wage subsidy programme —- these are some of the proposals that have...

After the outbreak of COVID-19 in China during early January this year and its dissemination globally within a few days, health experts have suggested ways to check its spread exponentially among the rest of the population. In the age of internet connectivity, work-from-home and self-isolation have been advised as solutions to ensure social distancing and avoid large-scale social gatherings. Experts have asked governments and private enterprises to keep people at...

-The Indian Express Indigenous cattle population is further down while crossbred numbers have gone up. Latest census also shows an eastward shift as West Bengal overtakes UP with highest cattle count. A look at these trends. On Wednesday, the Department of Animal Husbandry & Dairying released the results of the latest livestock census, which provides headcount data of domesticated animals in the country. The census shows a further decline in the...