Even though the Central Government agreed to link the wages paid under MG-NREGA to the Consumer Price Index for Agricultural Labourers (CPIAL), it shied away from paying statutory minimum wages in various states of India. Their logic for this: Lack of clarity on who will bear the extra financial burden—the Centre or the states? A letter from the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to UPA and NAC Chairperson Sonia Gandhi dated 31...

The Centre on Monday strongly defended the appointment of controversial bureaucrat P J Thomas, facing a corruption case in a Kerala court, as central vigilance commissioner, saying he was an "outstanding officer" with "impeccable integrity". In an affidavit in the Supreme Court cleared by Attorney General G E Vahanvati, government also said there was no need for "consensus" of the three-member high powered committee on CVC's appointment. While Prime Minister Manmohan Singh...

The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act has in its four years faced many challenges in implementation, says a monitoring report. FIVE years ago, Parliament enacted a significant piece of legislation relating to women. The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (PWDVA), 2005, designed as a civil law, came into effect a year later, in October 2006. The fundamental feature of the Act was that it empowered magistrates...

So why is the UPA hell-bent on killing its unique success story: the NREGA? Here's the inside narrative of the conspiracy. It took 47 days of a protest sit-in at Jaipur to make the state budge(1). It's notable that the objective of this protracted protest was not to coerce the Rajasthan government for an extra share of the state's resources, but to hold the government accountable to the Constitution and its...

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Friday described as “highly unfortunate” the Supreme Court judgment upholding the Kerala High Court order banning public meetings and rallies on roadsides. The ruling, coupled with earlier restrictions on demonstrations and strikes, did not augur well for a democracy, the party's Polit Bureau said in a statement. It was a common practice for political parties and other public organisations to hold meetings on roadsides. Since...