-Economic and Political Weekly The various activities being promoted under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme such as water harvesting and soil conservations could have high positive results on environment security and biodiversity and environment conservation. While this article appreciates the integration of biodiversity conservation into the MGNREGS, it points out the importance of preparing panchayat-level biodiversity registers, supporting individual and institutional efforts in biodiversity conservation and the formulation of...

-The New Indian Express THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: It was not profit but interest in farming that drove Ummer Vadakkedath and Moosakoya Kariyeri of Pettikadavu in Peruvayal grama panchayat, Kozhikode to yardlong beans cultivation. In a 30 cent plot, they jointly grow yardlong beans, which they sell at the Palayam vegetable market. "We had been farming other vegetables in the plot for the past several years. But recently we shifted our focus to yardlong beans,"...

-Press Information Bureau (Ministry of panchayati Raj) Government has released Rs. 3720.19 crore during first year of Twelfth Five Year Plan that is 2012-13 under the Backward Regions Grant Fund(B.R.G.F.) Programme being implemented by the Ministry of panchayati Raj. Answering a question in Lok Sabha today, panchayati Raj Minister Shri V.KISHORE CHANDRA DEO said, the released amount is 99.63 percent of the total Revised Estimate (RE) allocation of Rs. 3734 crore for...

-The Business Standard The economic logic - and political reasons - behind the giant shift of spending power to the states Interim Budgets are not supposed to do this. This is precisely what they are not supposed to do. They are not supposed to lay out a policy change so vast it disempowers the next central government. But that's what P Chidambaram has done - and it appears to have been...

-Press Information Bureau (Ministry of Tribal Affairs) Government has disposed of 31, 06,690 claims by the end of Dec-2013 out of 36,54,420 claims filed under Scheduled Tribes and other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act -2006, commonly known as Forest Rights Act (FRA). This is 85.01% of the total claims filed under the Act. Out of the claims disposed off, 14,18,078 titles (13,95,647 individual titles and 22,431...