The amount of rural reportage in the Indian media remains far too low, with even important stories such as those on farmer suicides tending to be ignored. One of the outspoken critics of this trend has been P Sainath, rural-affairs editor of The Hindu  and 2007 winner of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts. He was also the journalist who originally broke the story on...

While promising to release a sum of Rs 500 crore to keep the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) running in West Bengal at the earliest, the team from the Union rural development ministry that met the state panchayat minister today forced the state to frame a policy before disbursing further allotment to the districts under the scheme. The Central team, led by its joint secretary, Mrs Amita Sharma,...

Following the death of two civilians during an encounter — when the security forces gunned down six uniformed Naxalites in Mahasamund district — the Chhattisgarh government on Monday ordered a magisterial inquiry into the incident and announced a solatium of Rs 5 lakh each, besides assuring other help to the families of the victims. State Home Minister Nankiram Kanwar and Agriculture and Labour Minister Chandra Shekhar Sahu rushed to Ledgidip...

Several thousand day labourers and their families were driven out of Delhi over the past couple of days to try and hide India’s poverty from foreign visitors to the Commonwealth Games, a police officer said today. Most were taken to railway stations and put on trains under the Delhi government’s orders, said the officer who oversaw part of the operation. Those who couldn’t afford tickets had their arms branded with an...

The stance of the ministry of rural development stands null and void. At least, as far as officials of the state government are concerned. For most of them that the delegation of the Mazdoor Satyagrah met on Monday agreed in unison that it is unconstitutional to pay MGNREGA workers anything less that the minimum wages. However, officials expressed their inability to pay more and demanded the total component from the Centre. Recently,...