Out of 228 Panchayats chosen at random from one block out of the 249 blocks in the state, for comparison of NREGA wages, a maximum of 35% have got wages between Rs 21 to Rs 30 in 2010. The figures also show that in most of these Panchayats, it is only a handful of families that have completed 100 days of work. In fact, it is hardly alarming that the...

The Orissa government on Saturday deferred land acquisition for the proposed mega steel project of Posco till Monday, as pressure mounted on it for withdrawal of armed policemen from three gram Panchayats in Jagatsinghpur district. The authorities announced the postponement owing to bad weather, hours before social activist Swami Agnivesh visited Govindpur to express solidarity with the agitating villagers who have formed a human barricade at the entry point to their village, with...

After land acquisition and food security, the National Advisory Council (NAC) has set its sights farther, this time to monitor programme implementation at Panchayats. The council led by Congress president Sonia Gandhi feels the ministry of statistics and programme implementation is not doing enough to monitor the panchayat programmes, while panchayati raj ministry has little say since most programmes are out of its purview. Monitoring Panchayats would be part of an...

Capitalism is supposed to bring in modernity, which includes a secular polity where ''babas'' and ''swamys'', qua ''babas'' and ''swamys'', have no role. Many have even defended neo-liberal reforms on the grounds that they hasten capitalist development and hence our march to modernity. The Left has always rejected this position. It has argued that in countries embarking late on capitalist development, the bourgeoisie allies itself with the feudal and semi-feudal...

PERAMBALUR: About 1.55 lakh persons have registered under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in the district and all of them have been issued with identity cards, said Collector Darez Ahmed here on Tuesday. Mr.Ahmed, who inspected various works taken up under the scheme in Veppanthattai panchayat union, said works worth Rs.56.64 crore would be executed under the MGNREGS in the district during the current financial year. The works...