-Outlook Dehradun: The Uttarakhand government will soon launch a self-employment scheme for the unemployed youths of the state by building 3,5000 shops and giving them to the beneficiaries on interest-free Loans repayable in ten years. To be built in clusters of 10 shops each on a piece of land identified by the District Magistrate concerned, each of the shops will be available at a cost of Rs 2 lakh, official sources said...

-The Indian Express Kutch (Gujarat): Bhajan Singh, 62, remembers the time curious villagers turned up to see a borewell his father Gopal Singh had dug up. The year was 1969 and it was the first time Sumrasar village, near Bhuj in Kutch district, had had a borewell. Few had ever seen it work, as they depended entirely on rainwater for the barely one crop they harvested a year. Originally from Pakistan, Gopal...

-World Resources Institute India struggles with water scarcity, a problem that poses especially huge implications for the country's food security and rural livelihoods. The country has long-battled its scarcity issues through Watershed Development, a participatory approach to improve water management through afforestation and reforestation, sustainable land management, soil and water conservation, water-harvesting infrastructure, and social interventions. But while watershed development has been employed in communities throughout India, its potential long-term costs...

-Outlook Bhubaneswar (Odisha): The Centre will work jointly with Odisha government to end the practice of bonded labour, Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh said. "I look forward to working with the state government to put an end to this horrendous social evil," he said in a letter to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. Centre would implement a special livelihood project started under National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) to mitigate the plight of...

-The Hindustan Times Mahatma Gandhi urged us, in our moments of doubt, to recall the face of the poorest person we may have seen and ask ourselves whether the step we are contemplating is likely be of any use to him or her. It is in this spirit that Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) was launched. It is perhaps the most ambitious social security and public works programme...