-The Hindu There is a compelling case for spending Rs. 3.6 lakh crore on the poor, but it must be done carefully The idea of a minimum income guarantee (MIG) has caught up with political parties. A MIG requires the government to pay the targeted set of citizens a fixed amount of money on a regular basis. With the promise of the Nyuntam Aay Yojana (NYAY) by the Congress party, it is...

-VillageSquare.in The residents of Rampura, a small village in the buffer zone of the Panna Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh, have been asked to move. But, they say, with no allocation of alternative land, where will they go? “If they come to destroy our houses with elephants, we’ll THRow all our belongings and our children into the pond, form a circle and ask them to shoot us, but we will not leave...

-Down to Earth THRee in four Indian women not employed while the gender pay gap is 34 per cent Irrespective of employment category (casual and regular/salaried), organised or unorganised sector, and location (urban and rural), women workers in India are paid a lower wage rate, says a report by Oxfam, an international non-profit organisation. The gender pay gap was 34 per cent in India, that is, women get 34 per cent less compared...

-The Hindu The proposal, a version of which has been previously presented to the Congress and to a foundation working with other Opposition parties, has been released in a policy paper titled ‘Strengthening towns THRough sustainable employment’. With rising unemployment becoming a major poll issue, and several political parties proposing solutions for it in their election manifestos, a group of labour researchers have proposed a national urban job guarantee programme for small...

-Frontline.in The cash transfer schemes the Narendra Modi government and several State governments have announced to woo the peasantry ahead of the election, like the loan waivers, short-change farmers because they avoid the vital issue of remunerative prices for farm produce. In a sudden flurry of new-found concern for the long-suffering Indian peasant, parties across the political spectrum are desperately trying to woo this section of society. In fact, ever since...