WORK ON GANDHI’S VISION, STOP TUSSLE OVER BRAND

THE Karnataka government recently called a legislative session to specifically debate the repeal of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, setting the stage for a tussle over the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi and his vision for India.

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Having begun on a sour note after Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot declined to read the speech drafted by the government, the debate was fired up by a government advertisement depicting Bapuji in an imagined conversation with a man called Sanghappa, an oblique reference to the RSS, on the VB-G RAM G Act. The Congress has been demanding the new law’s scrapping, terming it “adeath knell for gram panchayats”.The session discussed the drawbacks of the new scheme, including the change in the Centre-state fund sharing ratio and reduced powers of panchayats. Karnataka has 1.8 crore MGNREGA workers out of the nation’s total of 28 crore, mo