Economic liberalization since the 1990s has helped Dalits in Uttar Pradesh (UP) overcome caste inequalities, according to a research paper that argues against the view that reforms have exacerbated such disparities. The study by Devesh Kapur, Chandra Bhan Prasad, Lant Pritchett and Shyam Babu titled “Rethinking Inequality: Dalits in Uttar Pradesh in the Market Reform Era”, and excerpted last week in the Economic and Political Weekly, finds significant changes in patterns...

Suffering from extreme poverty and male oppression, the women of Darkali village in Madhya Pradesh, India, are now able to feed their families through employment under the MGNREGS. The wages obtained under the Scheme help them augment the family resource base. Jashmabai is working under the punishing sun on an earthen dam in her village of Darkali, in Madhya Pradesh's Alirajpur district, being built under the government-funded Mahatma Gandhi National Rural...

Rs. 3,000 each awarded to 78 persons who had worked at three sites After a long struggle, 78 persons who had worked at three sites in Jharkhand under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, but had not been paid, have secured compensation for their ordeal. Deputy Labour Commissioner Mahendra Murmu awarded Rs. 3,000 per worker at a Labour Court here on Monday. This is seen as a breakthrough for the aggrieved workers,...

Pickers say waste-to-energy incineration plants increase emissions and take away their only means of survival. The waste-pickers who scour the world's rubbish dumps and daily recycle thousands of tonnes of metal, paper and plastics are up in arms against the U.N., which they claim is forcing them out of work and increasing climate change emissions. Their complaint, heard on Wednesday in Bonn where the U.N. global climate change talks have resumed. The...

Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto turned classical capitalism on its head with his trickle-up theory: that if you create wealth at the bottom of the pyramid, it will find its way up. de Soto, president of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy, speaks to The Indian Express Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta on NDTV’s Walk the Talk on the need for the poor to be able to participate in the global economy...