The UPA government's flagship programme, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) has found itself in the eye of storm again. This time in a panchayat of the coastal district of Kendrapada thanks to an RTI activist. RTI activist Niladri Bhusan Tripathy of Kendrapada recently sent a petition to the executive officer of Golarhat panchayat in Derabishi block of the district seeking information on the project expenditure under the MGNERGA...

Ever since Malkangiri collector R Vineel Krishna and junior engineer Pabitra Mohan Majhi were released by the Maoists, development work has taken a beating in the "cut-off" area under Kudumulgumma block of Malkangiri district. Maoists had abducted Krishna and Majhi at gun-point from near Bodopoda, located within the "cut-off" area, while they were returning after inspecting a development work there on February 16. The Red rebels had released the collector on...

The Andhra Pradesh government plans to provide rural connectivity in 14 districts across the state. The project has been linked to the Centre's Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). The government issued a GO on March 3, extending the project to 14 districts, which would get internal roads and drains in the next two years. The project would provide these facilities in Krishna, Guntur, Prakasam, Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam, Mahabubnagar, Rangareddy,...

For a poor boy from the dark heart of tribal India, constable Kartam Surya has done well. An 8th class pass from the village of Misma in South Bastar’s Dantewada district — in the so-called Maoist 'liberated zone' in Chhattisgarh — 26-year-old Surya makes sure he gives his father, a marginal farmer scratching a living from the land, enough money to live in peace and comfort. "Surya is a good son...

Amid technical and infrastructural constraints, Maharashtra has rolled out 1.2 million Aadhaars, but the beneficiaries have been able to make little use of these numbers Ashok Bhil, a 25-year-old graduate from Navalpur, 7 Km from Tembhli, is disappointed with the way the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is rolling out Aadhaar in Maharashtra. Last September, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government chose Tembhli, a small village in the predominantly tribal Nandurbar...