-The Hindu Business Line The National e-Governance Plan can ensure that higher devolution of funds translates into improved outcomes Cutting edge technology is, no doubt, empowering. The right application of technology can boost productivity in all sectors of the economy: agriculture, manufacturing, services, business and governmental activities. Technology enables informed decision-making, stakeholder participation and efficient service delivery and can help ensure transparency, accountability, and rule of law leading to inclusive good governance....

-Business Standard The Centre's expenditure on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in 2015-16 was around Rs 43,848 crore, 22 per cent more than the Rs 36,025.04 crore incurred in the previous financial year. However, a statement by the Rural Development Ministry said Rs 56,000 was incurred on the scheme in 2015-16, but of this Rs 12,152 crore was paid in 2016-17 as arrears. This payment would now have to...

-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....

It seems that not only civil society activists, but even the poor and marginalized themselves are not happy with the Centre’s social welfare policies. Following the recent protest by 150 eminent persons regarding failure of the NDA Government to take-up urgent measures for employment generation and ensuring food, nutrition & drinking water security in the backdrop of severe drought in roughly 1/3rd of Indian districts (please click here to access),...

-The Indian Express The MGNREGA was inspired by the Maharashtra Employment Guarantee Act, passed in 1977, wherein policymakers found wage employment as the best way to empower people against drought As India faces the onslaught of another severe drought, and water, food, and employment dry up, the government will claim that it is doing its best to cope with the adversity. But, given the facts, that will be a patently false...