It is tragic that the same government that gives huge corporate concessions and loses money in corruption is fighting over minimum wages. As India's — and by some reckoning the world's — largest rights-based rural safety net programme completes five years, here is a reality check. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) has become the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). But in a monumental affront to the...

In a mark of protest against the administrative "bias" over an attack on labourers last year, Magsaysay award winner and activist Sandeep Pandey today returned the Employment Awareness Award presented to him by Congress president Sonia Gandhi. Pandey said that he had returned the award to protest against attack on labourers by Ghanshyam, husband of a village head, in Era Kake village on January 14 last year. He alleged that the incident...

The Manmohan Singh government has moved in to restore the role of civil society groups in conducting the social audit of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in an attempt to weed out corruption from various levels. The Rural Development Ministry is in consultation with the Comptroller and Auditor General to remove the lacuna that had cropped up after social audit rules were amended in 2009 to eliminate...

The director of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library is governed by civil service rules, the museum has said, putting in the glare Mridula Mukherjee, its director, who was one of the historians to work for the Congress. The reply to the Right to Information panel by the museum stated that all the employees were governed by the Central Civil Services (Conduct) rules. The rules cited by the museum prohibit “any government...

Three farmers in three districts of Madhya Pradesh Monday attempted to commit suicide, in a grim reminder of the continuing crisis the state's farmers find themselves in after their crops were destroyed by frost. Ramji Marawi (28), a farmer of Saliwada village in Jabalpur, allegedly took poison along with his two sons Manish (8) and Manoj (4). They have been admitted to the Jabalpur Medical College Hospital, police said. 'For three days...