Orissa government today said it was ready for any probe by the Centre into alleged diversion of funds and non-implementation of rural employment guarantee scheme MGNREGA in the state.This was stated by Orissa's Panchayati Raj minister Prafulla Samal while reacting to the Supreme Court's direction for a Central probe into irregularities in the rural job guarantee scheme in the state.Noting that the state government had always taken steps to implement...

Top ICMR scientists transferred Rs 70- crore tract  of govt land to themselves to build society flats If Mumbai's Adarsh scam saw former service chiefs, politicos and bureaucrats help themselves to flats meant for Kargil heroes and war widows, a multi- crore realty fraud allegedly involving senior scientists has been unearthed in Noida.The CBI has homed in on the retired top brass of the Indian Council of Medical Research ( ICMR)...

Police sub-inspector of Vyara police station, S H Bava, was nabbed red-handed by anti-corruption bureau (ACB) officials for allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 5,000 from a NREGA misappropriation accused here on Sunday. Bava had demanded money for not requesting for further remand of the accused from the court to investigate the case. Kanji Chaudhary, post master of Pathakwadi village, and Sapna Chaudhary, sarpanch of the village, had been arrested on...

Recently an interesting article appeared in The New York Times on how after the completion of a social audit at Nagarkurnool in Andhra Pradesh, villagers punished a local official for swindling funds allocated to the central government's flagship project, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme. The irate villagers tied the official's hands and paraded him around the neighbouring villages. This is not a one-off incident; similar accounts have...

Today, the Indian media—both print and television—is focusing on the recent corruption scandals involving the UPA Government with unusual zeal. However, I fail to understand why almost every commentator, every TV anchor, every editorial writer feels compelled to pay ritual obeisance to the “personal honesty and integrity” of Dr Manmohan Singh while dealing with the scandals emanating from his cabinet colleagues. They do so even when there is clear evidence...