Bhaggu, 65, says he can trace his memory back to when he was five. And he remembers the paradox that’s taunted him since: Of his village — Sohras, in northern Uttar Pradesh — being flooded every year and him having no water to drink. “They (government) distribute food, tarpaulin, kerosene, matchboxes but never made any arrangement for water,” says Bhaggu, a farm worker who goes by one name. “I think no...

While there is all-round concern about how the NREGA funds are being utilised at the grass-roots level, the Union rural development ministry has initiated the process of inducting technology to streamline the delivery system under NREGA. This will have a revolutionary impact on programme delivery. With about 50 million people working on site in 2,50,000 panchayats all across the country, the magnitude of the task is daunting. However, once the initial...

It’s been often asked why our officialdom, with all the intellectual capital at its command, is unable to quantify the number of the really poor in India. Is this such a difficult thing to do? It is all the more baffling because in recent times, the debate on India’s poverty has only further confounded ordinary citizens. The Planning Commission had come up with an assumed deprivation ratio of 27.5 per...

Reserve Bank of India has set a projection of fove years by which mobile banks would be penetrating to every village of India, said KC Chakraborty, Deputy Governor of RBI.   Chakraborty firmly said that in five years time every villager would be financially included. mobile bank is a movable vehicle which reaches a particular region at a specified time. Every mobile bank is authorized by some bank and is operated by bank...

If the direr predictions are to be believed, it may soon be a case of “Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink,” as the effects of global warming and water use patterns combine to make access to good drinking water an issue, especially in developing countries. As another of the many measures initiated to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of ensuring environmental sustainability through access to drinking water and...