-Newsclick.in The Narendra Modi government has carried the practice of making low budgetary allocations for MGNREGS to its limit. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme or MGNREGS was introduced by the United Progressive Alliance-I government despite opposition from the neo-liberal lobby within it, owing inter alia to the active intervention of the Left, which was supporting that government from outside. The scheme was restrictive from the beginning: it promised a maximum...

-Press statement by NREGA Sangharsh Morcha dated 17th November, 2021 The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) has provided a cushion to millions of rural households amidst great economic distress during the COVID-19 pandemic. A substantial portion of the household expenditure in rural areas has been met through the NREGA wages and the nation has witnessed a significant rise in the demand for work under the programme since the...

The increase in the total number of suicides committed in India during 2020 in comparison to the previous years has hit the headlines recently. While some media commentators have stated that the economic distress (caused by job loss, income loss, failure of business, and growing hunger, among other things) in 2020 could have led to more suicides being committed, others have said that home isolation and deteriorating mental health (associated...

-Newsclick.in Farmlands in Narela’s Garhi Bakhtawarpur village remain flooded for eight months a year due to an overflowing drain. Saving his crops from the overflowing local pond spread across five acres in Garhi Bakhtawarpur village, in Narela, seems to be an eternal battle for Ritesh Rana. Pointing to an inundated patch of farms, Rana said that his family owns 30 acres. However, owning such prime land in the national capital is not beneficial...

-The Telegraph A total of 19 per cent or 11.16 lakh teaching positions in schools lie vacant in the country; 69 per cent of these are in rural areas According to the 2021 State of the Education Report for India: No Teachers, No Class, 1.1 lakh schools in India have just one teacher. Even more worrying is the fact that the problem is especially acute in districts with high representations from scheduled...