The Assembly elections this year, followed by squabbles and tussles between the ruling Trinamool Congress and the CPM at various gram panchayats and panchayat samitis after the regime change, have spelt doom for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in West Bengal. In the seven months from April 1 to October 31, only 19 days of jobs could be given to 2.55 lakh families and 4.17 crore mandays could...

After so many wrongs, the Planning Commission may have just got it right. According to leaked accounts, its universal health coverage proposal may become reality as early as the next five-year Plan. Once this policy is in place, India can legitimately enter the club of welfare states through the front door. Now, at last, it has a scheme that is truly inclusive for it includes us all. When implemented, this measure...

Five States did manage a significant decline in the average number of farm suicides between 2003 and 2010. However, more States have reported increases over the same period. The television story was genuine and sensitive. At least 90 farmers, it said, had committed suicide in two months in Andhra Pradesh. These were cotton growers. Actually, last year, Andhra farmers killed themselves at the rate of 210 each month on average, according...

JANGU, 40, a Dalit labourer in Paraspur village in Gonda district, 120 km northeast of Lucknow, displays his job card in complete disbelief. “My job card was made three years ago and shows three payments. But I was never given any work, so how was the payment made?” he asks, puzzled. The first entry shows a payment of Rs 1,400 but he received a paltry Rs 100. He never went...

-The Times of India   The Supreme Court on Friday ordered an investigation into whether the benefits of government's welfare programmes like NREGA were reaching the intended beneficiaries and to fix accountability for ensuring that they do, in what is going to be a gigantic exercise. A bench of Justices G S Singhvi and S J Mukhopadhaya appointed senior advocate Indu Malhotra as amicus curiae and asked her to study the details...