-The Hindu   The Goa government on Tuesday filed a reply before the Goa Bench of the Bombay High Court to a Public Interest Litigation petition on illegal mining, claiming that the extraction, which the petitioner questioned, was from dumps and excess mining did not take place. The affidavit was submitted on behalf of Director of Mines and Geology Arvind Loliekar in the course of the hearing on the Goa Foundation's petition, which...

The Centre is likely to raise remuneration under its rural job guarantee scheme and align it with the notified minimum wages of states following a court order last month.  Millions of workers enrolled under the government’s Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) are entitled . 100 a day for a minimum of 100 days of work in a year. Despite the wage now being linked to the consumer price...

-The Business Standard   Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, and Karnataka have shown high-growth momentum in agricultural foodgrain production during the last five years and have the potential to contribute significantly to India’s foodgrain basket. The share of these low-foodgrain yielding states in the total foodgrain production of India have improved from 17.4 per cent to 19 per cent during 2002-06 period over 2007-11 period. However, the contribution of the states with high-yield foodgrain production like...

The Centre is likely to pay minimum wages to workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in compliance with the recent Karnataka High Court ruling upholding the supremacy of the Minimum Wages Act (MWA) over the MGNREGA. Union Minister of Rural Development Jairam Ramesh has taken a decision favouring payment of minimum wages for agricultural workers as notified by the States as MGNREGA wages. He told The...

-The Hindu   Making no reference to the month-long conditional “ceasefire offer” from the West Bengal leadership of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday gave a seven-day deadline to the Left Wing Extremists in the Jangalmahal region on her offer of “negotiations if you give up your arms.” During her second visit to the Maoist-affected Jangalmahal region after assuming charge as Chief Minister, Ms. Banerjee claimed that...