-The Business Standard The NDA is using the discretionary powers allocated by the UPA government to either chip away at or metastasize social sector programmes The NDA government has found two ways to deal with the social sector programmes and policies it has got from UPA as legacy. Some of these the NDA wants shrunk or diminished and it's doing so through executive fiat, often in stealth mode. Then there are others...

-The Hindu Every effort needs to be made to reform MGNREGA, as it has been both a major success and a huge failure. The best way for this is to study carefully the conditions that made it a success and also to undertake a diagnostics of its failures An impression has gained ground in recent weeks that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Centre is inimical to the Mahatma Gandhi...

-Down to Earth Letter to Modi says Indian government should be wary of higher IP standards that are typically demanded by the US administration and its trade negotiators in bilateral negotiations People's organisations have urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make public the specific purpose of the Indo-US joint working group on Intellectual Property (IP) and pursue inclusive public consultations approach for the formulation of country's IP policy. The demand follows Modi's...

-The Telegraph The National Democratic Alliance government is planning to scrap the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. The chief minister of Rajasthan, Vasundhara Raje, had already asked for the employment programme of the MGNREGA under which the state was obliged to provide employment on demand (failing which an unemployment allowance of a specified amount had to be paid), to be downgraded to a mere "food-for-work" programme, where the state...

-Outlook The Supreme Court today asked the National Green Tribunal to take action against industrial units polluting Ganga including snapping water and power connections to them while slamming Centre and State Pollution Control Boards for their "failure" to punish erring units. Expressing deep concern over the present pollution level of the river, which it held to be the "lifeline" of the country, a bench headed by Justice T S Thakur gave a...