A new survey of implementation of the much talked about National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) in Manohar Thana tehsil of Jhalawar district in Rajasthan has testified to the effectiveness of the programme in the rural areas. Despite the existence of areas of concern such as delays in payment of wages and even non-payment of minimum wages, the track record, particularly in employment generation, has been impressive, it says.

Nonfarm activities generate on average about 60 percent of rural households

>> More than 100,000 tonnes of rotting garbage are lying on the roadsides of the southern Italian city of Naples, after garbage trucks stopped operating since the last week of December 2007 because

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, (NREGA) was notified on September 7, 2005. The objective of the Act is to enhance livelihood security in rural areas by providing at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.

Prosperity of a nation depends on the status and development of its women more, as women not only constitute nearly one third of its human resource population but also influence the growth of remaining two third of the human resource. Realizing the importance of farm-women, from Ist to Vth plan, for the development of women, Govt.

National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) conducted an integrated survey of households and unorganised manufacturing enterprises in the 62nd round of NSS during July 2005 - June 2006. The subjects covered were household consumer expenditure, employment and unemployment and certain characteristics of unorganised manufacturing enterprises. The present report is the second one in a series of three reports being brought out based on the survey on unorganised manufacturing enterprises. The first report contained information on various operational characteristics of enterprises like location of

This report is based on the data collected through the 62nd round of NSS. It gives quantitative information on various characteristics pertaining to employment and unemployment and some characteristics associated with them at the national and state levels. This report also presents some quantitative information on current attendance in educational institutions for persons in the age group 5-29 years and on vocational training received by persons in the age group 15-29 years.

The paper presents the socioeconomic profile of the people around proposed mining areas of Mahanadi Coalfields Limited at Talcher and Ib valley coal mine areas to generate base line data for future intervention. The Quality Of Life (QOL) has also been indexed in a 0-10 point scale based on some important value function like occupation , caste and land ownership. Jan 2008

Even as we celebrate 60 years of Indian democracy, with millions of our people hungry, cynical and insecure, and living under the barrel of the gun (of the state or the extremists), we need to worry about the reach and quality of our political process. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act has the potential to provide a "big push" in India's regions of distress. For NREGA to be able to realise its potential, the role of civil society organisations is critical. But this calls for a new self-critical politics of fortitude, balance and restraint.

RAMPAL Singh Yadav, 25, moves with an air of purpose on his crutches, supervising the stone-crushing work by a nearly 80-strong

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