-The Hindu A well recharge pit was also dug for harvesting the rains Appiyampatti, a small hamlet in Dindugal district of Tamil Nadu, is one among the several villages in the state which has been facing a severe drought for the past over five years. Even during such a critical phase when several farmers left farming and started moving out in search of alternative work Mr. V.Chellamutu remained anchored in the village to...

-The Hindustan Times Shimla: Even as the Himachal government boasts of having achieved women's empowerment in the state, everyday hardships are leading to stress and other mental and physical health problems among females in rural areas. Women have been the backbone of the state's economy but a host of vexatious issues they have to continually struggle with still make their life difficult. Poor healthcare facilities, lack of teachers, water scarcity...

-The Financial Express The proposed MGNREGA changes can help plug the leakages and enhance agriculture productivity There is good news about the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (MGNREGA) scheme. Recent press reports reveal that the rural development minister, Nitin Gadkari, has instructed lowering of the mandatory share for unskilled wages in total expenditure from the current 60% to 51%. He has also directed, quite rightly, that 50% of the expenditure be...

-PTI Amidst opposition in several quarters to its plan to tweak the rural job scheme, NDA government on Thursday asserted that it would go ahead with MGNREGA reforms as it charged that the flagship programme of the previous UPA regime "was allowed to be exploited for purely partisan purposes". "The tendencies of acquiring easy money and using government funds for political party promotion could be curbed only when a spirited team of...

-The Indian Express Moves to dilute labour-material ratio in MGNREGA and focus exclusively on select backward blocks will adversely impact rural poor. Before the general elections, free-market fundamentalists had lobbied fiercely to reshape so-called wasteful social-sector expenditures. Primary among their targets was the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), which, according to them, should become an unconditional cash transfer scheme. Post-elections, the late Gopinath Munde's espousal of the MGNREGA went...