Services and goods associated with information and Communications technologies (ICTs) are creating opportunities for the poor, but those sources of income are unevenly distributed and not always sustainable, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said today in a new report. In Kenya, for example, there are now more than 18,000 agents for the M-PESA mobile telephone-based money transfer service, and Bangladesh has some 350,000 “village phone ladies,” UNCTAD...

Bringing much relief to the general public of Tuensang district, after many years of undelivered PDS ration, the village council of Chang villages was able to deposit money for respective PDS items on October 6 and 7. “Hopefully from this month onwards the villages will be receiving regular ration directly from the department godown and this happened due to cooperation from the State Government and the District Supply department in the...

In yet another embarrassment for the Chandigarh Administration, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has directed it to “put on hold the acquisition of land for IT Park, Phase-III”. In a Communication sent to the Administration on Monday evening, the MHA has minced no words in directing the Administration to stop the acquisition process and take prior permission from the ministry for acquisition of proposed projects in the peripheral area...

The amount of rural reportage in the Indian media remains far too low, with even important stories such as those on farmer suicides tending to be ignored. One of the outspoken critics of this trend has been P Sainath, rural-affairs editor of The Hindu  and 2007 winner of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts. He was also the journalist who originally broke the story on...

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, which has revitalised the rural landscape across the country, stands diminished in the land of its birth, Rajasthan, hijacked and held to ransom by vested interests and stripped of its backbone of an open social audit. As the Andhra experience has shown, there is one ingredient that can bring back its vitality: institutionalising citizen audits. But, is the Rajasthan government up to...