This article examines evidence for disparities between three ethnic groups within the Scheduled Tribes category in the Jawhar and Mokhada talukas of Palghar district in Maharashtra in order to understand the dimensions of these disparities.

Utilising household-level data, this paper investigates the impact of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme on financial inclusion. Exploiting the staggered timing of the roll-out of the programme across districts, while controlling for its non-random implementation, it is found that MGNREGS improves financial access. This is confirmed in simple univariate tests as well as in multivariate regressions that take into account several district- and household-level controls.

Recent evidence suggests that a significant number of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act workers are not paid at all for their work. An analysis of this phenomenon revealed that the increasing dependence on technology in the implementation of the act is creating new hurdles for wage payments.

A watered-down UBI based upon a dismantling of the existing social welfare schemes would be disastrous. (Editorial)