Officials may pocket the wage increases, but the wage level in MGNREGA seems just enough to induce workers to turn up. This year marks the sixth anniversary of the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), India's landmark right-to-work programme. The Act guarantees 100 days of paid employment to every rural household in India (up to 850 million people), regardless of eligibility criteria, and establishes the government's...

Experts agree that the economic and environmental costs of interlinking India's rivers far outweigh its projected benefits. Some people believe it is the one-stop solution to prevent floods and droughts, reduce water scarcity, raise irrigation potential and increase foodgrain production in the country. But others say it is just another grandiose scheme involving huge costs and leading to long-term ecological consequences. The contentious idea of interlinking India's rivers has come...

-Live Mint   Divisions between the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI, or Aadhaar) and the home ministry grew wider on Thursday after the Nandan Nilekani-led entity and the department of information technology (DIT) raised objections to the Resident Identity Card (RIC) scheme. Three high-ranking officials, who spoke independently and on condition of anonymity, said a meeting of the Expenditure Finance Committee (EFC) to clear Rs. 6,790 crore for the home ministry’s RIC...

The state government has proposed to spend more than Rs7,300 crore on the ailing agriculture sector — in desperate need of assistance after registering negative growth in the previous financial year — and on irrigation. However, this may not translate into direct assistance to farmers. Moreover, this year’s state budget continued to neglect dry land farming – which is of serious concern in view of erratic weather conditions – and has...

-The Deccan Herald   Survey says the poor formed 18.5 pc of the population in 2009-10 Poverty in the State continues to be highest among the southern states. As per the Economic Survey report released by the Department of Planning, Programme Monitoring and Statistics on Tuesday, poverty is still a major cause for concern for Karnataka. As in 2009-10, Karnataka has 10.87 million (1.087 crore) poor people (18.5 pc). Andhra Pradesh has recorded 9.3 pc poor,...