-The Indian Express   Available data suggests the programme has been effective in reducing rural poverty and gender discrimination Nirmala Sitharaman's misinformation (‘How not to run a programme', IE, May 9) on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), which employs one in every four Indian rural households every year, is disappointing. Consider these facts. For the first time in over two decades, the increase in rural consumption (a proxy indicator...

-The Indian Express   MGNREGA is beset with failures of planning, execution, monitoring and accountability. This election season, we have seen the BJP seeking the people's mandate on the slogan "sab ka saath, sab ka vikas". The Congress harps primarily on a "we gave you" list. The first in this list is the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA). The 11th Five Year Plan recognised that 30 crore people lived below the...

-The Indian Express   The Gujarat model, if there is one, is not shining. Surjit Bhalla, in recent articles (‘Gujarat's inclusive growth', IE, April 12, ‘Gujarat's other calling card', IE, April 19 and ‘Just name-calling', IE, April 26), has been making a case for Narendra Modi's prime ministerial candidacy by praising the Gujarat development model. It is surprising because, just a year ago, he critiqued Gujarat's growth model for being "neither equitable nor...

-The Hindu   So far, the electoral promises of allocation of six per cent of GDP to education have remained as pious wishes Election manifestoes over decades have rhetorically spoken of six per cent of GDP or more to education and this election has been no exception; the actual spending on education is only around three per cent. Not surprisingly, school infrastructure and teaching personnel are inadequate and of poor quality while the dropout...

-The Hindu The Polavaram multipurpose project has faced rough weather with non-compliance of environmental assessment and large-scale displacement The Union Cabinet's resolution last week - to clear the proposal for constituting the Polavaram Project Authority (PPA) - has attracted cautious criticism from the Odisha government. With the general election in full swing and Telangana set to come into being, it is obvious that political parties would leave no stone unturned to gain...