The Mrinalini Mukherjee Foundation and People's Archive of Rural India invite proposals for the MMF-PARI fellowships 2023-24.  Number of fellowships: Four Grant amount: Rs. 2 Lakh per fellowship Focus: Arts and Crafts from rural India Duration: One Year Deadline for application: July 31, 2023 Special Focus for 2023-24: Stories from Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura, West Bengal, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand. Eligibility: Indian citizens who currently live and work in India...

KEY TRENDS   • Oxfam India's 2023 India Supplement report on poverty and inequality in India reveals that the gap between the rich and the poor is widening. Following the pandemic in 2019, the bottom 50 per cent of the population have continued to see their wealth chipped away. By 2020, their income share was estimated to have fallen to only 13 per cent of the national income and have less than 3...

-The Hindu Allow more flexibility at the ground level, says internal study commissioned by the Ministry of Rural Development An internal study commissioned by the Ministry of Rural Development has argued for decentralisation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), allowing for more “flexibility” at the ground level.  The Ministry recently made public the report of the sixth Common Review Mission which surveyed seven States — Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh,...

-PTI/ TheWire.in States such as Tripura, Uttarakhand and Mizoram have just one functional eye bank, according to data. New Delhi: Eleven states and Union Territories, including Goa and Jammu and Kashmir, have no functional eye banks, according to official data.   Doctors, however, underlined that such banks alone don’t serve the purpose as there is an increasing demand for eye donors, especially in view of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has exacerbated the situation. According to...

-The Hindu The employment scheme will work in tandem with the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana to help take up treatment of about 30% more land than feasible with the current scheme size With limited funds to deal with the gargantuan task of restoring degraded land and reversing desertification in the country, the government is now planning to bring convergence between the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) and the...