Stir likely to be intensified if project gets green signal With the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests set to take a final decision on the proposed steel plant project of Posco-India Private Limited on Monday, Orissa villagers facing displacement have decided to intensify their agitation if the Ministry order went in favour of the company. That a majority of villagers in the three gram Panchayats of Dhinkia, Gadakujang and Gobindpur in...

NREGA has always been touted as the UPAs flagship scheme but there have been a number of instances when the scheme has been misused by those who are dispensing funds.   IAS officers Sukhveer Singh and Chandrashekar Borkar both posted in Seedhi district in Madhya Pradesh, between 2006 and 2007, were charged with misappropriating nine crore rupees during this tenure. Funds meant for NREGA, a scheme that ensures hundred days of work...

Taking forward the reform process in the public distribution system (PDS), Orissa government today decided to abolish storage agent arrangement from April 1, the Utkal Divas Day. This was decided at a high level meeting chaired by chief minister Naveen Patnaik. After abolition of 863 storage agents spread over the state, the government would assign the job of stocking public distribution items to state run Orissa Civil Supply Corporation, official sources...

The Planning Commission has decided to disown the Integrated Action Plan (IAP) for Selected Tribal and Backward Districts that it authored and was approved by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) — in a vastly amended form — in November last. Currently being implemented in 60 Left wing extremist (LWE)-affected districts, the plan was watered down by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) before it received the CCEA nod. Having...

Fundamentally, our current crisis in food supplies as well as food prices arises out of the sidelining of Jawahar Lal Nehru’s dictum “everything else can wait but not agriculture”. Unfortunately, the last twenty years have been characterised by very low rates of agricultural growth, averaging around one percent per annum. This is almost equal to the rate of GDP growth during the last half century of British rule. In effect, in...