Five years ago, the Prime Minister launched the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), calling it the single-largest initiative of the government of India for a planned development of our cities. This unique, Rs 50,000-crore (subsequently enhanced to Rs 66,000 crore) programme to be implemented over a seven years from 2005 to 2012 focuses mainly on 65 mission cities with provision kept also for other small towns. While the...

A Bachelor of Rural Healthcare course is one of the proposed solutions: Azad Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Ghulam Nabi Azad has called for “out of the box” solutions to reach out to remote areas so that health services can be provided there at the earliest. Speaking at a two-day national conference of State Health Ministers and Health Secretaries here on Wednesday, Mr. Azad said that in many remote areas...

Telecom minister Kapil Sibal today termed “utterly erroneous, baseless and sensational” the government auditor’s estimate that the alleged 2G scam resulted in a presumptive loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore. Sibal gave a detailed explanation of the priorities that drove the telecom policy and the benefits over the years to “the aam aadmi” — something his predecessor A. Raja did not or could not articulate till now. Drawing a parallel with free...

Since 1947, successive governments have missed innumerable opportunities to put the country on the path of sustained, inclusive growth. Time and again, quixotic ideology has led to meaningless debates, antediluvian policy and inexplicable strangulation of capacity buildup in both physical and social infrastructure. Even today, while the gap between current and projected national demand and supply is well acknowledged, the government continues to drag its feet in creating the policy...

Nearing the four crore mark in providing jobs under MGNREGA , re-launching the Provision of Urban Amenities in Rural Areas scheme and reinforcing social audit in programmes on complaints of irregularities were the foremost tasks of the rural development ministry in 2010. While 3.9 crore households were provided employment, the share of women beneficiaries under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act went up to 51 per cent, with...