-Down to Earth   Blames Centre for non-release of funds Bihar has very little money to pay people under the Central welfare scheme that guarantees 100 days of employment to the rural poor in a year.   Central government's reluctance to release funds under its Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) is said to be the main reason for the crisis. Nitish Mishra, Bihar's rural development minister, told Down To Earth that the...

-The Hindu     Paddy cultivation is no longer lucrative in Kanyakumari district Kanyakumari: The fertile rice bowl of erstwhile Travancore, now part of Tamil Nadu's Kanyakumari district, is gripped by a serious economic and ecological crisis. The emerald green paddy fields, banana and coconut groves in the backdrop of the Western Ghats, and irrigated by hundreds of water bodies may soon fade into a neglected prized painting, if urgent measures are not taken, warn...

-The Business Standard The dominant theme in the pre-election discourse is that misrule by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) in its second term has led to sharply lower growth of gross domestic product (GDP), which Narendra Modi will reverse, the way he has made Gujarat shine. But the evidence on hand does not support this correlation between the quality of national political leadership and growth performance. If anything, there is...

-Live Mint   Rights laws offer an important lesson for the new government: you cannot legislate your way out of state failure It is well known that the Indian state suffers from a serious crisis of implementation capability. So deep is this crisis that it cannot even reliably perform the most routine tasks like moving money and getting employees to show up at work. So, it is hardly surprising that rights laws have...

-DNA Elections 2014 are around the corner. And when elections draw nearer, the Government suddenly wakes up and thinks of its duties towards the people. This year is no exception. Whether it is the one-rank-one-pension for the retired defence personnel or the legal monthly entitlement of 5kg of wheat/rice/millet for poor households under the national Food Security Act or the announcement of a 7th Pay Commission along with a DA instalment...