-The Hindu Business Line Economy is recovering but rural labour market still in distress Even as the economy is on the recovery track — spurring optimism about job creation and better employment prospects — a large part of the labour force, especially in the rural areas, continues to face challenges. Data from the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) indicates that stress in the labour market, which escalated after Covid-19 lockdowns,...

-Hindustan Times The study has been authored by Aditi Roy, PHFI Crop diversity is thought to have small, positive impacts on dietary diversity among farming households, particularly when market access is restricted. Policy responses to the Covid-19 Pandemic severely restricted market access. To date, no study has explored the relationship between crop and dietary diversity in this context. To address this gap, we used longitudinal data collected from 833 farmers across 12...

-TheWire.in A claim of an 8.4% real GDP growth rate has little relevance even as rural India battles plummeting wage levels, depleted incomes and widespread unemployment. With the release of the GDP figures for the quarter ending September, the government machinery has been in full swing advancing the narrative that economic growth is indeed back on track. However, sorely missing from these narratives is the inconvenient factoid on the currently dismal state of...

-IdeasforIndia.com The Centre has sought an additional Rs. 25,000 crore as funding for MNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act). Based on simple calculations using official data, Ashwini Kulkarni contends that the actual fund requirement is in fact much higher. As the Pandemic continues to adversely impact rural livelihoods, the government should allocate sufficient funds to MNREGA, in order to honour the work-on-demand guarantee. For over a month, national and local...

-The Telegraph Shortage of funds that was being cited was a gross violation of the law: Swaraj Abhiyan The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to examine an NGO’s plea that crores of workers were in a crisis as funds-starved states had run up wage dues of Rs 9,682 crore under the Centre’s flagship 100-day job scheme MGNREGA that has witnessed an increase in beneficiaries because of the Pandemic. A bench of Chief Justice...