-The Hindu Business Line A CAG report has laid bare the fact that rice millers have for decades reaped undue gains even as they failed to replenish the national food stock Much like rice spilling out of a tear in the sack, the country’s food procurement system has been leaking crores of rupees every year and impoverishing the government. Last week, in a report presented to Parliament the Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG)...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The national rural employment scheme is set to allow use of labour-displacing machinery in all activities in a move that, social activists say, would defeat the objective of guaranteed 100 days' work to a rural household. The rural development ministry is set to amend its guidelines under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) to allow use of machinery such as JCBs, rollers, mechanical mixers and...

-PTI NEW DELHI: To prevent leakages in the MGNREGA programme, the government will introduce the system for electronic transfer of wages to the beneficiaries from January 1 next year in Kerala, Lok Sabha was informed today. An additional Rs 2,000 crore would be sought from the Finance Ministry towards ensuring that MNREGA wages are at par with the agriculture wages fixed by some states, Rural Development Minister Birender Singh said. Mahatma Gandhi National...

-The Asian Age The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act wages is set to go up, with the government on Thursday stating that it would bring parity with the agricultural minimum wages in states. The ministry of rural development would soon ask the finance ministry for an additional allocation of `2,000 crore to roll out the wage hike. Union minister for rural development Chaudhary Birendra Singh on Thursday informed the Lok...

-The Hindu Business Line As the Right to Information Act completes 10 years, we examine how RTI has changed people’s lives, become a byword for democracy, and helped alter the relationship between citizen and state Mintu Devi’s relationship with the ration shop changed the day she filed an RTI. In the jhuggis of New Seemapuri, situated on the northeastern edge of Delhi, she is a legend. The 37-year-old mother of four is...