-The Economic Times The government will roll out a United Nations-assisted livelihood security programme in 10 Naxal-infested districts in a bid to tackle the growing influence of Maoist rebels. The rural development ministry, which has been spearheading the developmental approach to this Left-wing menace, has in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme worked out a five-year plan to make markets work for the poor, ensure that state governments are more responsive...

-The Hindu Geeta Devi’s neat Hindi signature is written below her photograph – a shy-looking woman with a dupatta covering her head – in an affidavit duly notarised in Haridwar last month. Dehradun district resident Manju smiles out of the photograph on her affidavit, where she states she is just 36 years old. According to the government of Uttarakhand, both Manju and Geeta Devi are dead. After all, both women are manual...

-The Hindu Pokhari village in Maharashtra’s Buldhana district continues to reel under a spate of farmer suicides. From 1998 till now, nothing seems to have changed A phone call informing him about the twin suicides of his father and older brother changed 23-year-old Sunil Wagh’s life forever. On September 28, his father Shivaji, 55, and brother Baliram, 28, hung themselves, Shivaji at his farm and Baliram at his home in Pokhari village...

-The Hindu Kerala’s Kudumbashree network and the rural employment guarantee scheme have converged to provide a unique model of empowerment An incredible story of empowerment has been unfolding in the wake of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) programme in the State of Kerala. This is the story of how a socially engineered convergence of the scheme with panchayati raj institutions and the State sponsored community network of poor...

-The Telegraph The Sonia Gandhi-headed National Advisory Council has suggested revamping the way tribal and Dalit welfare programmes are now implemented, saying these have failed to make much difference to their lives. Council member N.C. Saxena told The Telegraph that the funds allotted for Dalit and tribal welfare schemes are now mostly spent on wider projects, diluting the benefits, which accrue to all rather than specifically to Dalits and tribals. The council examined...