Retail giants pushing the European Union-India free trade deal promise consumers a "new and dynamic retail experience" but ignore the fate of India’s "mom-and-pop" stores and some 40 million people they employ. Four years in the making, the EU-India Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreement made serious headway during Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Brussels Dec. 10 and is due to be signed and sealed early 2011. But the negotiations have...

The government is in no hurry to enhance the outlay on Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) to Rs 5 crore nor has any intention to merge it with the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee programme (MGNREGA) in the near future. Emerging from a national consultation meeting on enhancing inclusiveness of the MPLADS and to make it more target-oriented, minister of statistics and programme implementation (MoSPI) Sriprakash Jaiswal...

State governments as well as Central agencies have opposed a proposal to use money from the Member of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) for building community centres under the Union government’s flagship rural jobs guarantee programme. Officials said managing accounts for such a diversion would be difficult and could lead to the misuse of funds. A meeting of state government representatives and district collectors, meant to revise MPLADS guidelines to make...

Legal experts have called for repealing of anti-beggary laws and demanded effective implementation of welfare and social security laws for enhancing sources of livelihood for the beggars. Usha Ramanathan, law researcher, Poverty and Rights, New Delhi, and B.B. Pande, former professor of Law, University of Delhi, said prevention and prohibition of beggary laws enacted in several States have infringed upon individual liberties and have provided powers to State authorities to round...

Expressing serious concern over faulty implementation of the government’s flagship programme, NREGA, in Orissa, the Supreme Court on Thursday asked the centre and the state government to explain within four weeks why a CBI probe should not be ordered into the irregularities. “We are constrained to observe that the Union of India as well as the state of Orissa, prima facie, have failed to effectively and purposefully implement the provisions of...