Rural folk living on the outskirts of Kolkata have welcomed the various employment opportunities generated through financial aid by the Government social schemes like the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) and the Swarnajayanti Gram Sarojgar Yojana (SGSY). The villages here are witnessing a slow, but steady impact of various poverty alleviation schemes being implemented by Panchayats (village councils) and West Bengal's Rural Development Department. The formation of self-help groups (SHG) along...

Small and marginal farmers have reason to cheer, as the Central government has decided to construct small tanks, wells and even horticulture plantations in their fields under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). Sources in the divisional commissionerate said the government has amended the act to include even small and marginal farmers belonging to backward community, including SC/ST, especially those holding farms smaller than two acres. These farmers will...

Citing violation of a host of environmental laws, a government-appointed expert panel has recommended that Vedanta Resources should not be allowed to go ahead with its proposed bauxite mining project in the Niyamgiri hills area of Kalahandi and Rayagada districts in Orissa. A decision on this will be taken by the Ministry of Environment and Forests later this month. The expert panel, headed by Naresh C Saxena, a retired IAS officer who...

About 85,000 people in three south-western districts of Odisha have been affected by flash floods as rivers submerged vast areas following heavy rains, state Revenue and Disaster Management minister S N Patro said here today. In 151 villages of the affected blocks, relief camps have been set up and food served to the affected people through community kitchen, Patro told reporters after a visit to the flood-hit districts of Nabarangpur,...

The implementation of the Scheduled Tribes and other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act in Madhya Pradesh faces a host of problems due to a strange interpretation of the Act by the Forest Department. While the department's opposition to the Act is no secret — several petitions have been filed against it in the Supreme Court by retired forest officials or organisations run by them — new information obtained...