-Business Standard Official panel points to bid deficiencies in rural job guarantee, pensions, housing and other programmes Wage payment delays are a distressing feature of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), an official panel says. This has to be adequately addressed, by  the Centre and states, to keep the programme’s spirit alive, it has said. It and some other findings of concern are the result of a multi-state Common Review...

-CivilSocietyOnline.com For the past decade state governments have launched a series of Internet-based initiatives to deliver services more efficiently. Technology has been seen as the best way of bypassing red tape and corruption in the system to reach the poor directly with benefits. Beneficiaries are identified through biometrics and a series of tech solutions like smart cards, micro ATMs and so on. The result of these efforts is that India is...

-The Indian Express NDA government’s plans for agriculture are still to bear fruit As the Modi government celebrates two years in office, any review of its functioning will be incomplete without examining its record on the farm front. In the two years (FY15 and FY16), while the economy grew at 7.2 per cent and 7.6 per cent respectively, agriculture and the allied sector grew at -0.2 per cent and 1.1 per cent....

-Livemint.com A look at the past three budgets shows that the government took note of the crisis only in 2016 On 24 April 2014, about a month before Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) formed a new government at the centre, the India Meteorological Department made an ominous forecast. The four-month-long southwest monsoon which irrigates more than half of India’s farmlands was likely to be deficient. Over the next few months the...

-The Indian Express 92 more than 2015, Govt taskforce says crisis too big, will take time to turn things around. Latur/ Pune: The farmer suicides, which have remained unstoppable for past few years in eight districts of Marathwada, have crossed the staggering 400-mark in just over four month period in 2016. Compared to 2015, as many as 92 more farmers have embraced deaths in the first four and half months of 2016, highlighting...