We have accommodated all new requests made by India: envoy Even as diplomats and officials were taken aback by the protests against the smooth-sailing India-Russia nuclear plant venture at Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu, Russia on Tuesday described the protests as unfortunate. Russia said the imminent threat of the project being stalled would not impact future cooperation in the civil nuclear sector but could affect other projects such as the third and fourth...

The ministry of rural development is mulling over changes in the implementation guidelines of the country’s largest rural employment guarantee programme, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). The ministry has constituted a committee to be chaired by member Planning Commission Mihir Shah that will look into issues such as ensuring legal compensation for not providing work on demand, reducing distress migration from rural areas, cutting down on delays...

The Centre’s flagship welfare plan has failed to turn the tide on a key problem: rural migration. The disconcerting admission about the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, or MNREGA, came in a paper released today by Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh on the main challenges facing the programme and the reforms required. Checking distress migration is a key objective of the scheme, other than providing at least 100 days...

The government will recast the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, to give it a welfare edge, following criticism that it was disconnected from people's concern over corruption, high food prices and inflation. The attempt will be to make it more responsive to people's needs and increase earnings of the rural poor. The reform attempts to make the scheme truly demand-based, besides addressing issues of fraud, misuse of funds, corruption...

The government plans to focus its flagship rural jobs guarantee plan on the poorest districts of the country as there is a growing recognition within the administration that the scheme's nation-wide rollout has adversely impacted its performance. Launched in 2006, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee programme promises at least 100 days of unskilled manual work in a year to each household in rural India. The scheme was initially...