-The Indian Express As per data being examined by the committee, the minimum wages paid to agricultural workers are significantly higher than MGNREGA wages in Karnataka, Punjab, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Mizoram, and Andaman and the Nicobar Islands. THE COMMITTEE for revision of wages paid under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Generation Act (MGNREGA) has found that minimum agricultural wages are higher than MGNREGA wages in 15 states. An upward revision...

-The Telegraph. Lucknow: Around 5,500 of the nearly 8,000 panchayat chiefs in BJP-ruled Uttarakhand have resigned to protest an alleged reduction in the budget for rural development. The panchayat chiefs are also protesting the Trivendra Singh Rawat government's refusal to increase their monthly honorarium from Rs 750 to Rs 5,000. The panchayat chiefs have been agitating for the past three days. Girveer Parmar, the state president of the Uttarakhand Gram Pradhan Sangathan, said 5,500...

-Economic and Political Weekly Govind Bhattacharjee (govind100@hotmail.com) is a Director General at the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. According to the evidence presented in the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India and studies elsewhere, 11 years of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act have not been able to make much of a dent in rural poverty. This article also suggests some innovative ways...

-The Indian Express The Niti Aayog's report, submitted before the United Nations, acknowledges that anti-poverty programmes like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) helped weaker sections of the society. Vindicating the UPA government’s stand on pulling people out of poverty, India’s Voluntary National Review Report on the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals to the United Nations has said that sustained growth of 8.3 per cent from 2004-05 to 2011-12,...

-The Hindu While sanitation schemes in India date back to the British Raj, Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) is the latest and by far most ambitious iteration. Launched by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the end of 2014, the Rs.9,000-crore scheme aims to achieve an Open Defecation-Free (ODF) India by constructing 12 million rural household toilets across the country before October 2, 2019 — to coincide with Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birthday. But...