-The Economic Times   I will never make the mistake of discontinuing M(G)NREGA; because it is a living testimony of your failures. After 60 years of Independence you had to make people dig ditches — Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In that March 2015 speech in Parliament, Prime Minister Modi taunted the Congress Party that the rural job guarantee programme Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) was required because of the party's...

-Scroll.in Activists also challenge the government's proposal to make Aadhaar mandatory for social schemes. Soon after the Budget was presented in the Parliament on February 29, Prime Minister Narendra Modi described its provisions as pro-poor, pro-farmer and pro-village. But two weeks on, seven grassroots campaigns working on the right to food, public health, education, sanitation, and the rural employment guarantee programme said that the Budget will fail to sustain existing welfare schemes. In...

-Press Release from Delhi Pension Parishad Activists from seven major campaigns stated unequivocally that the Union Budget for 2016-17 far from ‘Transforming India’, as claimed by the Finance Minister, Shri Arun Jaitley, is neglecting the interests of farmers, the poor and vulnerable both in nominal and real terms and subjecting every life-affirming program to severe  budget cuts. Activists from seven major campaigns such as the Right to Food Campaign , the...

-Business Standard Data from past elections suggest that the saffron party gets fewer voters from the poor From postponing a hike in railway fare to promising doubled farmers' income in the next five years, from the prime minister holding a number of farmers' rallies to renewed focus on augmenting rural growth and enhancing allocation for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme in the Union Budget, the National Democratic Alliance government...

-The Financial Express It is expected that the measures announced in the Budget will boost agricultural output and rural incomes It appears that Budget FY17 has not generated enough excitement in media, academics and the masses, including farmers. Currently, farm distress is a serious concern in the country. The livelihood security of the rural population is in peril. Farmers are in dire need of substantial help to come out of the crisis-like...