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Purpose How can efficiency of a welfare scheme be measured? The purpose of this paper is to develop an efficiency evaluation model, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) implementation efficiency model (MIEM), to evaluate the rural employment guarantee scheme in India. Design/methodology/approach MIEM employs data envelopment analysis (DEA) to compare relative efficiency of MGNREGA implementing states. It uses policy implementation process as a central “black-box” about which not much can be said, to account for state-wise implementation differences. Findings Based on administration, funds, expenditure, employment created, works executed and completed, women beneficiaries and households completing 100 days of employment, the MIEM captures current implementation efficiency and provides suggestions to propel inefficient states toward efficiency. Practical implications DEA has operationalized MGNREGA evaluation. As a decision support system, MIEM assists evaluators to develop guidelines from better performing states. It is anticipated that it will facilitate scaling up MGNREGA in inefficient states. Social implications The model developed here can be applied to diverse evaluation conditions thus leading to better utilization of scarce resources. Originality/value This paper is one of few to use DEA to evaluate MGNREGA, and is one of the first to evaluate all India implementing states on efficiency.

This article examines the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in two districts of Tamil Nadu—Panchetti and Salem. It describes the functioning of the Act based on a preliminary field study and documents the views of implementers and beneficiaries. This analysis reiterates that the implementation should drive policy and that the evaluation lessons need to filter back to the design of the policy. More specifically, MGNREGA requirements can be improved on two counts: one, wage determination and wage rates; and two, evolving better techniques to measure labour productivity.

Societal violence against children in general and sexual violence against the girl child are rising alarmingly. Seen as soft victims, neither multiple state legislations nor natural laws of morality have been able to keep them safe. The issue becomes contentious when violence is perpetrated along gender, class, and religious identities. The justice system is being co-opted to stand with the oppressors, intent on preventing the voice of support to the victims from rising, effectively shrinking and shutting down spaces for displaying solidarity and social dissent. A scene India witnessed in its horrific intent in 2018 in what came to be called the Kathua Rape Case. Through the perspective of life writing, this paper will reflect on how an individual response to this heart-wrenching event developed into an organic community protest in a calm seaside town of South India, hundreds of miles removed from the mountains of Kashmir. When the State denied permission to assemble, fearing a larger discontent, the civil society demonstrated its resolve and coalesced to raise a silent voice against the violence and brutal molestation of an eight-year-old child. All this peacefully, without defying authority, and without breaking any rules.

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