“Agra ke Taj Mahal se Dilly ke Lal Kila tak Sampark Marg.” According to records, this is one of the projects undertaken under NREGS, for which over Rs 1 crore was spent during the last financial year. But inquiries have revealed that there is no such project on the ground. The matter came up during Minister of State for Rural Development Pradeep Jain Aditya’s recent visit to Varanasi. According to the Management...

The government is exploring whether it can use the biometric smart cards issued for its flagship health insurance scheme to stop misappropriation of funds under its rural employment scheme. The rural development ministry is in talks with the labour ministry to use the biometric smart cards issued for the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) for identifying beneficiaries of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). "I have seen truck drivers...

Gary Singh’s abduction ordeal illustrates the dangers faced by those who rely on smugglers to make their way overseas One day in 2006, 18-year-old Gubachan “Gary” Singh, an illegal immigrant in Manila, Philippines, was on his way to work when he was approached by four stocky Filipinos. One pulled out a gun, pressing the barrel into the small of his back, while another blindfolded him and shoved him into a van....

“It needs to be independent …. So it can't be pressured by the Prime Minister” With the Prime Minister's office intervening in several high-profile environment cases — most recently the Maheshwar dam issue — Supreme Court advocate Prashant Bhushan has called for an independent environment regulator to be set up on the lines of the Lokpal. “It needs to be independent and autonomous of the government, so that it can't be pressured...

Tihar jail today has the largest collection of charged or convicted top officials, a powerful ex-minister, sundry politicians and officials. Maharashtra had a teflon-coated chief minister who was ‘sacked’ to a cabinet post in Delhi after being long untouched by many scandals. Another just exited. A former Jharkhand chief minister is in jail on charges of looting his state treasury and accumulating funds abroad. The powerful founder of the Nationalist...