-The Hindu Hassan (Karnataka): Though officials of the departments of Public Instruction, and Women and Child Development may be enthusiastic about setting up pre-primary centres (Makkala Mane) to attract children to government schools, it has attracted the ire of anganwadi workers. With the setting up of these centres, anganwadi workers have to look after lower kindergarten classes aside from implementing the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS). The Makkala Mane centres were set up...

-The Hindu Tirupur: It is now almost 10 days since the eight bonded child workers were rescued by a special team, headed by the Revenue Divisional Officer and comprising officials and NGO members, from two textile units situated in the heart of Tirupur knitwear cluster. But till now, no police case had been registered in the incident leave alone arrest the accused. The revenue and the police officials were passing the buck...

-The Economic Times Over the last decade the UPA government has tried to reduce poverty by legislating a regime of rights accompanied by the national rural employment guarantee (NREG) programme -spending Rs 1,70,000 crore on this strategy. This strategy would have been fine if the transformation of India from a strong currency, high growth and low inflation economy to aweak currency, low growth and high inflation economy had been accompanied by a...

-IPS News ROME: Jassiben, a self-employed potter from Nana Shahpur village in western India, loves summer despite the heat waves and frequent power cuts, because summer days always mean great business. "Poor people like us do not have refrigerators, so they store drinking water in the earthen pots that keep the water cool," says Jassiben, who uses only one name. "This year, the demand has been so high, I am selling at least...

-Frontline Despite the negative observations and criticisms, there is a strong case for MGNREGS works to be continued even in States with high per capita incomes. Hisar and Fatehabad: CONTRARY to general opinion, demand for work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) is high in Haryana. Contrary also to the views in recent discussion papers, one of them commissioned by the Commission for Agricultural Cost and Prices...