The Union government recently indexed the wages of workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) to the consumer price index for agricultural labour (CPI-AL). The step, aimed at boosting the purchasing power of workers, came in the midst of a controversy over the government not linking wages under MGNREGS to the minimum wage under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948. The wage hike, ranging from 17-30%, is likely...

The Central Information Commission (CIC), the final appellate authority for the Right to Information (RTI) Act, has asked the Planning Commission to include disclosure norms in all future public-private-partnership (PPP) projects undertaken by the Centre and the state governments. Chief Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra has written to Planning Commission deputy-chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia to incorporate disclosure norms, so that any project which has the participation of private firms and concessionaires come...

The National Advisory Council's recommendations on the National Food Security Bill are in danger of being brushed aside. It is the fate of most advisory committees that the government accepts whatever advice suits its purposes and ignores the rest. The first version of the National Advisory Council (NAC-1) managed to avoid that fate to some extent, due to favourable circumstances. NAC-1 was able to persuade the government to enact the...

Government Planning to move court for Rs.200 as wage The State government is Planning to move the court seeking to enhance the minimum wage being given to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) beneficiaries from Rs.125 to Rs.200. Official sources told The Hindu here that this option was being explored in the wake of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's decision to link wages with the Consumer Price Index. Consequent to...

Chairman of the expert team of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) Naresh Dayal said on Friday that prima facie there was no large-scale destruction of forest land for the controversial hill city project, Lavasa. Speaking to journalists on the third and final day of inspection, Mr. Dayal said that contradictory to the allegations made by social activists Medha Patkar and Anna Hazare, Pune's water supply would not be affected...