The Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, on Friday reviewed the progress towards financial inclusion by banks in India. Dr Singh was briefed on the efforts being made by banks to reach banking services through information and Communication technology based models and banking intermediaries to 73,000 rural habitations having population of over 2000 as per the 2001 census by March 2012. The Prime Minister also reviewed the safety and security measures...
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Central team visits cholera district
A three-member central team reached the cholera-hit Rayagada district today to review measures being taken by the authorities to check the epidemic. The team visited Kalayansinghpur, the worst-affected block of the district. More cases of cholera deaths were also reported from across the district. While the official death toll stood at 40, unofficial sources claimed that the epidemic had already claimed more than 75 lives in Rayagada district alone. The number...
More »Rural job hope by Cithara Paul
Qualified rural youth now have a chance to get a government job, if only on contract, with 12 lakh technical vacancies opening up in gram panchayats across the country. The panchayati raj ministry headed by C.P. Joshi has decided that each gram panchayat will be allowed to recruit between four and six persons, including engineers, accountants and computer technicians. There are 2.5 lakh panchayats in the country. The state selection commissions will...
More »Govt likely to miss target of 250,000 rural kiosks by ’12 by Surabhi Agarwal
An initiative to set up information technology (IT) kiosks to offer government services in rural India is likely to miss its expanded target of establishing 250,000 centres because of delays in releasing funds. The scheme to set up 100,000 common service centres (CSCs), through which villagers would be able to access a host of services, was launched in 2006. In June 2009, President Pratibha Patil said in her inaugural address to the...
More »Women, Children Top UN's Anti-Poverty Agenda by Matthew O Berger
All eight of the U.N.'s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are critical to development, but numbers four and five on child and maternal health are the real priority areas for this year. That was the main takeaway from a series of briefings with U.N., NGO and country officials in which IPS participated this week. When the MDGs were agreed in September 2000, they laid out a clear pathway to the often vague...
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