Nepal, Jan. 23 -- The Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government's decision to revamp India's signature rural job guarantee scheme is ill-advised, petty, myopic and dubious from an intention point of view. However, what it is above all is emphatically and unequivocally anti-women, perhaps without an overt understanding that it is so.

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is now Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) or VB-G RAM G. The unfortunate acronym-the 'G Ram G' being a hat tip to the BJP's Hindutva politics-aside, the revamp of the scheme marks a significant dilution of the scope, intent and spirit of the original version, and consequently, of its effectiveness.

The change...