-TheWire.in It will greatly bring down the poverty reduction impact of the programme, harm the construction of much-needed rural infrastructure and dramatically diminish the labourers’ bargaining power vis-à-vis the farmers. At the recent fourth governing council meeting of the NITI Aayog, the government announced the formation of a sub-group of chief ministers to propose ways of linking the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) with agricultural activities. The group is headed...

-The Telegraph State ignoring ground realities of malnutrition, busy trying to prove every victim was ailing, says Drèze Ranchi: Right to Food Campaign activists claim the Jharkhand government was doing precious little to arrest the circumstances that force people to starve and die, but was continuing to "shamelessly marshal" all resources to prove after every starvation death that it was because of illness and not hunger. According to noted economist and activist, Jean...

-GoIMonitor.com The villagers getting management rights under the Forest Rights Act can inspire others “First came the forest, followed by the people, and then the government. Does this chronology allow the newest entrant in the scheme to determine the relationship between the two older entities? In other words, does the new regime of community forest resource bequeath rights or is it merely a recognition of unalienable rights already vested in the communities living...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: In a bid to ensure higher returns for labourers in MGNREGA, the Union rural development ministry has again asked the finance ministry to index the wages under the job guarantee scheme to Consumer Price Index (rural - CPI-R) in place of the current CPI (agricultural labourers - CPI-AL). The RD ministry has argued that CPI (R) better reflects the present consumption pattern among rural households unlike...

-The Hindu The social activist whose new book on the RTI is just out, worries about the doublespeak in politics today, where rhetoric and substance never match The past couple of months have been hectic for Aruna Roy. The social activist and Magsaysay Award winner has been travelling across the country to promote her book, The RTI Story: Power to the People, which came out in April. After waiting more than a...