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...
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NREGA sangharsh morcha asks for withdrawal of NMMS app for marking compulsory worker attendance
In the recent week, the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) has dealt three major, concerted blows to the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA): (1) The Budget allocation for NREGA was reduced to just Rs 60,000 crore in 2023-24 (less than Rs 50,000 crore if we deduct wage arrears from 2022-23). This makes this year’s allocation the lowest as a proportion of GDP (0.2%) in the history of the programme. (2) The...
More »Mandatory digital attendance for MGNREGA will destroy scheme -Himanshu Nitnaware
-Down to Earth The central government has mandated digitally capturing the attendance of all workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGnregs). Labourers and activist groups have opposed this and pointed out several loopholes in the move. The National Mobile Monitoring System, which came into effect on January 1, 2023, was launched with claims of bringing transparency and eliminating corruption at the ground level. Pilot tests began in May 2021 at...
More »E-rupee transactions will not be tracked
-The Telegraph Many experts, including former RBI governor D Subbarao, have flagged concerns over the privacy aspect of CBDC Mumbai: The RBI on Wednesday said the central bank digital currency (CBDC) will remain anonymous and regulations that are applicable to paper currency will prevail on the e-rupee. Earlier this month, the RBI had begun a pilot for the retail digital rupee after it launched another project for wholesale digital rupee among financial institutions. Many...
More »First Time in 20 Years, Currency in Circulation Declines in a Busy Diwali Week: SBI
-The Telegraph In a remarkable development, for the first time in 20 years, currency in circulation (CIC) declined during Diwali week. With the increased acceptance of Digital Payments in the country, over-reliance on cash is slowly fading away. Over the years, the Indian cash-led economy has now changed to a smart-phone led payment economy, says a research note. In the report, Dr Soumya Kanti Ghosh, group chief economic adviser of State Bank...
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