-The Telegraph New Delhi: Rural development minister Chaudhary Birender Singh today held a meeting with senior officials amid indications that the ministry is planning an ordinance to amend the year-old land acquisition law which industry has opposed. Among those who attended the two-hour meeting was Vandana Kumari Jena, secretary, department of land resources. Sources said the rural development ministry was under pressure from the finance and infrastructure ministries to amend the Right to...
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A tale of two numbers -Clement Imbert
-The Indian Express For my first field visit to study the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) a few years ago, Nikhil Dey took me from Jaipur to Rajsamand, where I met a team from the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) and the block officers they worked with. The block officers explained how the details of each day of work provided under the MGNREGS was entered online at nrega.nic.in....
More »Scheming against the poor -TK Rajalakshmi
-Frontline The Left and other national parties protest against the NDA government's attempts to dilute the MGNREGS by limiting its budget and reducing its reach. IN a rare show of solidarity, representatives of several political parties took issue with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government on its controversial proposal to restructure the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). The opposition, which was initially confined to the...
More »Rethinking IP think tank -Latha Jishnu
-Down to Earth Government sidelines its committee of experts to set up new panel to review India's intellectual property rights policy The politics of protecting intellectual property rights (IPR) is becoming more curiouswith the commerce ministry setting up a think tank to draft a national IPR policy while sidelining a committee of experts it had set up earlier. Annoyed academics who were asked to help formulate the policy in July this year...
More »Government spends Rs 80 crore in 5 years to maintain VVIP samadhis
-DNA The government has spent a whopping Rs 80 crore since 2009 to maintain VVIP samadhis. In an RTI filed by dna, the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) that is responsible for maintaining the Samadhi Complex in Delhi has revealed that these expenses were incurred to maintain plush lawns, electrical supply and security. The Samadhi Complex spread over 245 acres of land along the bank of Yamuna on Ring Road in Delhi...
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