-The Indian Express For my first field visit to study the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) a few years ago, Nikhil Dey took me from Jaipur to RajSAMand, where I met a team from the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) and the block officers they worked with. The block officers explained how the details of each day of work provided under the MGNREGS was entered online at nrega.nic.in....

-The Business Standard Govt suppresses report recommending radical reforms to improve their socio-economic status as it goes against Centre's rapid industrialisation agenda The National Democratic Alliance government at the Centre has suppressed the report of the High-Level Committee on the Status of Tribals. The report presents a scathing analysis of how development activities and strategies in India have increased the socio-economic gulf between tribals and rest of the citizens of India and...

-The Hindu Total fertility rate in 8 States below 2 children per woman Fertility is falling faster than expected in India, and the country is on track to reach replacement levels of fertility as soon as 2020, new official data shows. The 2013 data for the SAMple Registration Survey (SRS), conducted by the Registrar General of India, the country's official source of birth and death data, was released on Monday. The SRS shows that...

-Livemint.com Evaluating the impact of MGNREGA on rural labour markets, and on urban labour markets via seasonal migration Policymakers and academics are actively debating the efficacy of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and whether or not the new government should retain it in its current form in recent research. We have evaluated the impact of MGNREGA on rural labour markets, and on urban labour markets via seasonal migration....

-Business Standard Surveys show 40% still get loans from non-institutional sources & at high rates A little over half of India's agricultural households were in debt, with 40 per cent of the dues from non-institutional lenders, during agricultural year 2012-13 (July to June), according to a official survey. This 'Situation assessment survey of agricultural households' showed 51.9 per cent of all agricultural households were indebted, with the average amount of unpaid dues being...