-FactChecker.in/ IndiaSpend Team Mumbai: On completing four years in government, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) released a slew of infographics based on what it offered as achievements. Two such claims relate to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), a 12-year-old rural make-work programme launched in 2006 by the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, led by the Congress party. The BJP–whose leader Prime Minister Narendra Modi once said the...
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Dr. Samir Chaudhuri, paediatrician and founder of Child in Need Institute (CINI), interviewed by Civil Society News (New Delhi)
-Civil Society News New Delhi: In 1974, Dr Samir Chaudhuri, a paediatrician working in Kolkata’s slums, founded Child in Need Institute (CINI) to tackle the many dimensions of child malnutrition. It struck him at the time that malnutrition wasn’t just a clinical problem but a complex phenomenon rooted in gender issues. Over the years, led by Dr Chaudhuri, CINI developed deep understanding of the social, economic and political underpinnings of malnutrition...
More »A triple blow to job guarantee scheme -Rajendran Narayanan & Madhubala Pothula
-The Hindu A lack of sufficient funds, rampant payment delays and abysmal wage rates are to blame The ?11,000 crore fraud that diamond merchant Nirav Modi is said to have created is a figure that needs to be put in perspective. The total amount of wages pending under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme for the whole country (2016-17) was around ?11,000 crore too. This sum is a...
More »MGNREGA: Honest labour's love lost as government makes payment process complex -Sakina Dhorajiwala
-The Economic Times In over a decade, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) has been instrumental in providing employment to rural households. One of its key provisions is that once the work week is completed, the worker must be paid within 15 days. Millions depend on the timely payment of these wages. The payments process has made many strides in the last decade, from cash payments to wages being...
More »Fund fight: Why population became a sticking point for Centre and states
-The Times of India • What does the Finance Commission do? In India’s federal structure, taxation powers and obligations for various services — like law and order, health, education — are unequally shared between the Centre and the states. Hence, the Constitution mandates the setting up of a Finance Commission (FC) every five years to recommend how revenues from central taxes should be shared between the Centre and the states. A fair...
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