-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Union rural development ministry today highlighted the findings of select studies to defend its plan to modify the rural job guarantee scheme and answer critics who have accused it of trying to dilute the programme. A ministry note that cited these studies said the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) needed reforms to increase the creation of productive and durable assets and reduce politics and...

-Grist Media   The people of the Thar desert have their ways. This story unfolds over a year and recounts history through contemporary lives lived gently and with the land. It experiences first-hand the extraordinary old magic of growing lush crops in the desert. The land was the color of burnt caramel. It was flat and it was featureless: there was no tree in sight, no blade of grass, no ditch, no dune,...

-Economic and Political Weekly   The case of the local people's grievance against the mining of iron ore for the Bhilai steel plant from Rowghat in the reserved forest area of Chhattisgarh, a Fifth Schedule Area, is just one more example of the infringement of constitutional rights and guarantees. It also portends what is to come with the polity poised to take a decisive right-wing turn. Ajay Dandekar (ajayd16@gmail.com) is a faculty member,...

-The Hindustan Times   Bhilwara, Rajasthan: The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on Wednesday asked the Government of Rajasthan to pay Rs. 50,000 as monetary relief to a woman, who gave birth to a baby by the roadside in Bhilwara, after the medical staff at the Community Health Centre refused to admit her. The Commission had taken up the cognizance of the matter on the basis of a complaint filed by a human...

-The Hindustan Times Kota (Rajasthan): The level of education among tribal children is dismal in the state, a survey has found. The reasons are the lack of awareness about the importance of education and their nomadic nature. The Kota Heritage Society, a voluntary organisation, conducted the survey on the educational status of nomadic and denotified tribes of Rajasthan. The Indian Council of Social Science Research of the Union human resource development...