-The Telegraph NREGA Watch finds low funds, delayed wage payment defeating SPIRit Ranchi: Frustrating budget allocation, delayed payment of wages and contractors-middlemen-official nexus, among other factors, are defeating the SPIRit of the rural job scheme under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 in Jharkhand. A report card released on Wednesday by NREGA Watch, an NGO monitoring the scheme in the state, on the occasion of the 16th anniversary of commencement...

-Press release by NREGA Sangharsh Morcha dated 2 February, 2022 Notwithstanding the rural distress, implementing NREGA is a legal obligation of the Central government. However, the demand-driven nature of the Act has been repeatedly stifled in letter and SPIRit. By severe rationing of funds, it has been made a supply driven programme. Today is NREGA diwas and while we are supposed to be celebrating the idea of rural employment guarantee, we...

-Newsclick.in The SC has issued notice to the Centre over public authorities failing to disclose information under the central RTI Act, which applies to the region since 2019. Despite the rhetorical emphasis on e-governance, public authorities have failed to make suo moto information disclosures on their official websites in Jammu and Kashmir and other parts of the country. In 2013, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) directed all public authorities to...

-Newsclick.in India needs a larger government expenditure on transfers to the working people. For such larger expenditure, resources have to be raised through greatly increased taxation of the rich- a reversal of the perverse fiscal strategy the government has pursued so far. The Indian economy is currently caught in a vicious SPIRal of inflation, stagnation and a widening of the fiscal deficit. And this SPIRal is set to become even more vicious...

-The Hindu India is a republic only when its laws result from free public discussion and pass open scrutiny The Preamble to the Constitution declares that India is a ‘Republic’. This self-description must be taken seriously: being a republic is integral to India’s political identity. Moreover, this is not just a descriptive but also a strong, ethical, normative claim. Being republican is an ideal to which we are meant to consistently aSPIRe,...