Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Wednesday said workers employed under the government's flagship rural jobs scheme, Mahatma Gandhi NREGA, would get higher wages to offset inflation. "We have decided to hike the wages as per the rise in consumer price index. This will raise the wages by 17 to 30 percent," Manmohan Singh said at a function to mark the fifth anniversary of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). The gathering...

Violence against Dalits is the outcome of thousands of years of subjugation due to the existence of the caste system. But the situation of Dalit women becomes more vulnerable due to the intersectionality of caste with gender. The oppression against Dalit women becomes multiple and is manifested through extreme forms of atrocities committed against them by non-Dalits and violence by the Dalits. After the framing of the Indian constitution, very few laws...

Former DoT Secretary Behura and Raja's aide Chandolia also taken into custody, to be produced in court today The Central Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday arrested the former Union Communications and Information Technology Minister, A. Raja, and two officers who had worked under him, for their role in the grant of licences and allocation of 2G spectrum during 2008 in violation of established guidelines and procedures. Mr. Raja (47), as well...

The government has a plan to reach welfare to the poor without wasting money. It wants to put hard cash in their hands instead of spending on welfare programmes. To begin with, it wants to end the public distribution system of food grain and give money directly to the people. Its logic: the new system of cash transfer will plug leakages and save an enormous amount of money. But is it...

It is tragic that the same government that gives huge corporate concessions and loses money in corruption is fighting over minimum wages. As India's — and by some reckoning the world's — largest rights-based rural safety net programme completes five years, here is a reality check. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) has become the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). But in a monumental affront to the...