The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme completes five years this year. A week before the budget, CNBC TV18's Gopika Gopakumar travels to the interiors of Maharashtra to find out how the NREGA scheme is getting implemented. Pandurni village, in Nanded District of Maharashtra, is in high spirits. It has won the award for best performance in implementing the rural employment guarantee scheme for 2009-10. Around 1,500 people from this village are registered...

Nearly 110 students of different classes packed in the hostel for tribals which has a capacity of only 75 are living in inhuman conditions and are facing food, accommodation and sanitation problems. Chandrakant Pandey, organiser of Vidarbha unit of Council for Human Rights, has sought the attention of the people's representatives towards the pathetic condition of the hostel being run by Integrated Tribal Development Corporation, Deori. This correspondent found during...

Abundant reserves, says Beijing $1.96-billion relief effort under way China on Tuesday said a record drought across its major wheat-producing provinces would not impact global food prices, with the country expected to meet its demand from “abundant reserves.” “China is self-reliant on food,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Ma Zhaoxu told a regular press briefing. He was responding to a question on global concerns triggered last week after the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation...

There is no dearth of funds under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), but Karnataka's record of utilising these funds has been poor, especially in backward districts such as Gulbarga. Of the Rs. 150 crore allocated for the district under the scheme, only Rs. 50 crore has been utilised. The fund usage is also not up to the mark in Bidar and Davangere districts, said M. Nagendra...

Several species of fish unique only to the Waters of Kashmir are in danger of extinction due to high levels of pollution, environmentalists say. Limnologist and professor A. R. Yousuf, a specialist in fresh Water lakes and rivers, says the excessive and unchecked use of pollution-causing herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers of sub-standard quality dumped into Kashmir Waters is the main threat to the survival of these fish species. Yousuf’s list of endangered...