-NDTV The "highest ever allocation" to NREGA (which also led to it trending on Twitter)  in the Union Budget has provided a useful opportunity to raise some pressing issues related to the implementation of the scheme. It is natural, and welcome, that the government turn to NREGA to provide much-needed relief to those whose already precarious lives have been disrupted by demonetization, a man-made economic disaster. Widespread reports of job losses...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: India's public spending on health is about five times lower than the world average, the Economic Survey released today has said, adding the country lacks good models of health care for replication nationwide. The survey, in a section on social sector expenditure trends, has pointed out that the government's annual expenditure on health was 1.2 per cent of the gross domestic product in 2013-14, 1.1 per cent in...

-PTI AHMEDABAD: A differently-abled farmer from Gujarat's arid Banaskantha district has inspired several others to make the best use of their farmland by planting pomegranate. Genabhai Patel (52), a pomegranate farmer from Sarkari Goliya village in Lakhani taluka of the district, has polio in both legs but he did not let it become a hurdle. Instead, he experimented with farm practices involving drip irrigation to produce pomegranate in the highly arid and...

-Caravan Magazine Since the Aadhaar programme, which aims to provide Indian citizens with unique identification numbers, was launched in 2009, several petitions have been filed before the Supreme Court that oppose its application by the government. These petitions have challenged the Aadhaar programme on various grounds: the government’s right to ask the citizens to provide biometric data for Aadhaar verification without adequate safeguards against its potential misuse; the legality of the...

-The Hindu Business Line Bengaluru: Farmers in Karnataka, like their counterparts in other states who have been impacted by the drop in prices and cash shortage triggered by demonetisation, have another problem to contend with — crop loss on account of the failure of rains. It has been a kind of a triple whammy for farmers in the region. Besides being forced to reap a lower kharif output on account of a...