Women-led and women’s rights organizations are on the frontlines of today’s humanitarian crises—but many are at risk of disappearing. As global needs rise due to conflict, climate change, and displacement, deep cuts to foreign aid are threatening organizations that provide life-saving services for women and girls. In March 2025, UN …
Accusing the Bahujan Samaj Party government in Uttar Pradesh of engineering a large-scale corruption in the centrally sponsored schemes, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said that lion's share of fund under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS) or mid-day meal project is siphoned off. He also …
Pawar announces mega plans for mechanisation in 12th Plan Faced with farm labour shortage following the introduction of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on Wednesday announced mega plans for mechanisation in the 12th Five-Year Plan. “With the successful implementation of the MGNREGS …
Decision on rabi MSP soon: The Cabinet is expected to take a decision on the MSP of rabi crops, including wheat, soon. Sharad Pawar said his ministry had already forwarded its recommendations on the basis of suggestions given by the CACP. “It (decision on MSP) is expected at the earliest,” …
The Centre is likely to raise remuneration under its rural job guarantee scheme and align it with the notified minimum wages of states following a court order last month. Millions of workers enrolled under the government’s Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) are entitled . 100 a day …
The Centre will award gram panchayats that have excelled in implementing the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) to encourage rural bodies to perform better. The Centre has asked Jharkhand to pick a specific gram panchayat, which implemented the flagship rural job scheme well, at each of its …
India has been made chairman of the United Nations South Asian regional commission for tourism. This was announced at the ongoing United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) Conference at Gyeongju, South Korea, on Tuesday. Union Tourism Minister Subodh Kant Sahai, who is leading the Indian delegation at the UNWTO meeting …
At a time when the government is seized of the matter of duplication of biometric data collection for the UID and NPR (National Population Register) projects, and the costs involved therein, the Rural Development Ministry may pitch in with data collection. In the states of West Bengal, Tripura, Jharkhand, Bihar …
The Public Works Department (PWD) has faltered miserably in the implementation of Mahatama Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) as it has so far utilised less than 10 per cent of the allotted funds. The PWD was supposed to spend Rs 800 crore under this rural job scheme but …
New Delhi: Just when sections in the Congress and the government have questioned the procedures of the CAG, the rural development ministry under Jairam Ramesh has invited the government auditor to inspect the accounts of UPA’s flagship programme MGNREGA. Sources in the rural development ministry said the CAG earlier could …
The State Government's policy to resettle slum dwellers will permit private developers to take advantage of the increased floor-space index. With the Gujarat Government's recent move to offer flats free-of-cost to slum-dwellers at their existing site, the western State may become slum-free to some extent in the next few years. …
Bid to add social content to UID scheme, otherwise in limbo With the AADHAR scheme apparently in limbo, the Centre is making a desperate effort to provide it social content. As of now, only 3.5 crore unique identification cards have been issued as against an enrolment of 10 crore people …
After firefighting the controversy over poverty line cut-off, the Congress-led UPA government may find itself in trouble on the matter of NREGS wages. In a judgment late last month, the Karnataka High Court ruled that wages under the UPA’s flagship rural job guarantee scheme “shall not be” less than the …
India's poverty line finally makes headlines. Do a rapid archival search of newspapers, at least of the past 20 years, and one finds that the poverty line never made it to the front pages. In post television boom, it never featured on prime time. But the past one week has …
India's poverty level will go up by 3.6 per cent in rural areas and 2.9 per cent in urban areas if people's expenditure on health is factored in while measuring poverty. A study by the Institute of Economic Growth in Delhi redrew the poverty estimates of 2007 (the Planning Commission …
Poverty is becoming hereditary in India, at least for a sizeable population. That is the conclusion derived from a three-decade tracking of poor households in rural India. A survey by the Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC), an international association of researchers and academicians, claims that those who are chronically poor …
At a time when courts hog headlines, this was a conspicuous slip. About two months ago, the Uttarakhand High Court admitted a public interest petition on making gross environmental productivity a co-indicator of the state of the economy along with the standard gross domestic product (GDP). The media did not …
The World Food Programme (WFP) will start a new Bangladesh programme in January to assist 4 million hungry, vulnerable and malnourished people at a cost of nearly $340 million. The UN agency's last project operated between 2007 and 2010. It was later extended by a year to the end of …
“MGNREGS should move from relief work mode to one that blends natural resources and labour” to build productive assets The Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC), which went into hibernation in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson's absence, has been reactivated. On September 14, it despatched its recommendations on strengthening …
The rain-god may have been the kindest this year. However, the tea industry is facing a new crisis, that of absenteeism, which incidentally has been triggered off by MNREGS, the proudest flagship programme of the UPA government. The problem has become so big that the industry is even willing to …
Faced with MPs complaints regarding alleged corruption in the implementation of rural job guarantee scheme NREGS, Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh on Thursday faulted elected MPs for their intentions pointing that they are not ready to open their MPLAD Scheme expenditure to social audit. “Whenever there is criticism of MGNREGA …
