-Down to Earth Money pumped in development schemes in Bihar is giving rise to a new breed of village heads, flush with money and flexing muscles About a year ago killings and a spurt in the purchase of arms and luxury vehicles in extremely backward villages started to bother the Bihar police. It spied and found that mukhiyas, or village heads, had multiplied their assets beyond imagination. It took the police six...

-The Hindu Despite deriving their power from Dalits and the marginalised, the principal parties in Uttar Pradesh have turned away from the real issues confronting these sections, says Dalit writer Kanwal Bharti on his recent arrest My recent arrest has superbly exposed the well crafted illusion of socialism as professed by the Samajwadi Party (SP). I was arrested under Sections 153 and 295 A of the Indian Penal Code for criticising the...

-The Economic Times KOLKATA: Soon Bihar will become Punjab and second green revolution will start from these areas, said Dr Ashok Gulati, chairman, Commission for Agriculture Cost & Price at the 3rd Crop Summit held in Bihar. Dr Gulati raised the issue of unavailability of proper support value to farmers. He further told that Bihar doesn't have any issue in production but procurement is the major issue. Its rice milling capacity is...

-The Hindu     Concrete structures come up under Indiramma Housing scheme CHERIAL (WARANGAL DT., Andhra Pradesh): The lifestyle and habits in villages are fast changing and so also, the physical outlook. The beautiful, typical and old model houses are replaced by concrete buildings, partly thanks to the Indiramma Housing, flagship programme of the State government. Every village boasted of houses of different kinds - thatched roof houses, tiled houses, Chathurashala Bhavanthi and ‘Gadi' or...

-The Times of India CHANDIGARH: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday expressed concern over the rising number of slum-dwellers due to rapid urbanization and said even private entities would be given financial support to construct houses for the urban poor under the UPA's 'Slum Free India' scheme. "Today, we have 90.6 million people living in slums and this could swell up to 100.4 million by 2017," the PM said after handing over...