Government undecided on criteria to identify families below poverty line A survey by the Indian government in 2002 to determine households below poverty line (BPL) left out many poor families. Nearly a decade later, the Union Ministry of Rural Development (MORD) is trying to set the wrong right. But it is unable to decide on the criteria for identifying poor households. As a consequence, the BPL survey that was to...

India's food inflation nudged up after three successive weeks of decline to 8.74 per cent for the week ended April 9 compared to 8.28 per cent recorded in the previous week as fruits, meat and poultry products became costlier, official data showed on Thursday. Limited data on the wholesale price index released by the commerce and industry ministry also showed a rise in the index for primary articles, from 11.4 per...

One person was killed in police firing and several were injured as the protest against the nuclear power plant in Jaitapur turned violent on Monday. Thirty protesters including Shiv Sena MLA Rajan Salvi were arrested, Ratnagiri Collector Madhukar Gaikwad told The Hindu. A protester was killed in the firing and a policeman was grievously injured in stone-throwing, he said.  “Two separate incidents happened during the day,” Mr. Gaikwad said. “In the morning,...

Maharashtra Home Minister R.R. Patil said on Monday that the situation was tense in Jaitapur after Minister of State for Environment Jairam Ramesh's statement that there was no going back on the proposed nuclear project. One person was killed in police firing and several were injured as the protest against the nuclear power plant turned violent. Subhash Desai of the Shiv Sena told the Maharashtra Assembly that the incident was shocking and...

The Samanda community and rural development block has achieved the unique distinction of 99.97 person days per household and become the first in the state to provide 100 man days for each registered household under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). As many as 149 out of 151 village employment councils achieved the target. Samanda is near Williamnagar, the district headquarters of East Garo Hills, and is about 325km from...