After firefighting the controversy over poverty line cut-off, the Congress-led UPA government may find itself in trouble on the matter of NREGS wages. In a judgment late last month, the Karnataka High Court ruled that wages under the UPA’s flagship rural job guarantee scheme “shall not be” less than the minimum wages fixed by state governments under the Minimum Wages (MW) Act. The decision will re-open the tussle between Sonia Gandhi-led National...

Chastened by the 'poverty line' controversy painting the Centre as insensitive to 'aam aadmi', the government is wary of challenging a Karnataka High Court order which slammed the state for paying MGNREGA workers less than the minimum farm wages.  The court said that job scheme wages could not be less than the minimum agricultural wages and ordered that workers be paid the arrears.  The HC order would put an additional burden of...

While imposing a ban on mining in Karnataka’s Bellary district in July this year, the Supreme Court had reasoned that the massive environmental damage caused by excessive mining impinges on the constitutional right to life. In neighbouring Goa, the latest state rocked by a mining scandal, the destruction could be on an even larger scale if one compares mining figures and relates these to the areas of the large district and...

-The Indian Express   The Supreme Court has said that it amounts to “fraud” on the part of the government to forcibly acquire land under the guise of a public purpose, only to have the property transferred to real estate developers or companies for their use.   A Bench of Justices G S Singhvi and S J Mukhopadhyaya held that the State cannot use its power to compulsorily purchase or acquire land of a...

In planning, pursuit of profit was not seen as being in the social interest in the post-Independence years, but now profit is the sole motive. FOR two decades now the Government of India has pursued a policy of accelerated liberalisation, dismantling controls, diluting regulations and making the state a facilitator of private investment. It is not that the presence of the state has diminished during this period, but that its role...