Despite its seminal success in beginning a process of addressing issues of poverty, starvation and empowering the poor, the MGNREGA needed a general election to breathe life into it. However, the disproportionate influence of the middle class on social sector policy has led to the same set of pre-election prejudices resurfacing. "What use is the MGNREGA to the economy at large?" asks the businessman, one eye fixed apprehensively on the share...

The NAC proposals for the food security bill are narrow and lack in vision. What is needed is a comprehensive bill with universalisation of PDS and a focus on child malnutrition.   There was much excitement when food security became one of the issues in the manifestos of most major political parties in the run up to the 2009 General Elections. With burgeoning food stocks, double-digit food inflation, stagnant malnutrition rates, declining...

Leading micro-lender SKS Microfinance today hinted that it could move the courts if the recent Andhra Pradesh notification prohibiting collection of loan repayments on a weekly basis is not withdrawn.The notification stipulated that the periodicity of repayment by self-help group (SGH) members to MFIs should not be less than a month, even under existing loan agreements.However, microfinance institutions operating in the state have railed against the move."In the event the...

Right to Information (RTI) activist Santosh Daundkar on Tuesday gave a written complaint to the Maharashtra Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) against State Information Commissioner Ramanand Tiwari in connection with the Adarsh Housing Society scam. Mr. Daundkar has requested the ACB to register an FIR against Mr. Tiwari, former Principal Secretary, Urban Development; MLC Kanhaiyalal Gidwani and R.C. Thakur, chief promoter of Adarsh, for violations for law. In his complaint, supported by annexures of...

Bottlenecks at every stage in the implementation of MGNREGA in Atra village in Chhattisgarh are making the villagers disillusioned. “If payment is unreliable, the poorest and the most vulnerable opt out of the system...” On a rainy day in September, Bir Singh Malekar, 45, rues his decision to stay back in Atra village in Chhattisgarh's Rajnandgaon district this summer, instead of leaving in search of work. “I usually go to Chennai between...