Even though the Central Government agreed to link the wages paid under MG-NREGA to the Consumer Price Index for Agricultural Labourers (CPIAL), it shied away from paying statutory minimum wages in various states of India. Their logic for this: Lack of clarity on who will bear the extra financial burden—the Centre or the states? A letter from the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to UPA and NAC Chairperson Sonia Gandhi dated 31...

So why is the UPA hell-bent on killing its unique success story: the NREGA? Here's the inside narrative of the conspiracy. It took 47 days of a protest sit-in at Jaipur to make the state budge(1). It's notable that the objective of this protracted protest was not to coerce the Rajasthan government for an extra share of the state's resources, but to hold the government accountable to the Constitution and its...

Right to Food Campaign demands a universal PDS “It is a dishonest proposal of the government” The Right of Food Campaign has charged the Central government with lack of commitment in providing food and nutrition security to citizens with its reported decision to revise the issue prices of wheat and rice for the Above Poverty Line (APL) category of beneficiaries in the Public Distribution System (PDS). “This is the first step to finish...

Public outrage at the sentencing of physician and rights activist Binayak Sen continued on Tuesday, with philosopher Noam Chomsky, historian Romila Thapar and 80 others, including leading academics, writers and journalists, signing a joint statement condemning the “unbelievable savagery” of the sentence. Urging his immediate release as well as the early hearing of his appeal “with enlightened reason” by the higher judiciary, the statement said: “The damage done by this shocking...

Indian civil society was dismayed and horror-struck when human rights activist Dr Binayak Sen, who has spent over three decades caring for the poor in tribal areas of central India, was sentenced to life imprisonment for ‘sedition’ along with two others, Piyush Guha and Narayan Sanyal by a Raipur Sessions Court judge.  Protests are taking place everywhere in the country and the members of India’s vibrant civil society, peoples’ movements,...