Ahead of a UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) review meeting in New York next week, Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar, a nominated member of the Rajya Sabha, Sunday said that decentralisation of power was the key to fighting poverty and hunger. 'The major lacuna in the strategy for MDG is that it ignores the crucial delivery aspect of poverty and hunger eradication. While most countries in the world, developed and developing,...

KEY TRENDS   • Maternal Mortality Ratio for India was 370 in 2000, 286 in 2005, 210 in 2010, 158 in 2015 and 145 in 2017. Therefore, the MMRatio for the country decreased by almost 61 percent between 2000 and 2017 *14    • As per the NSS 71st round, among rural females aged 5-29 years, the main reasons for dropping out/ discontinuance were: engagement in domestic activities, not interested in education, financial constraints and marriage. Among rural males aged...

Union minister for rural development CP Joshi on Monday turned the table on the Nitish Kumar led-NDA government, saying that the state government had failed to bring into play good governance in the implementation of centrally-sponsored schemes, which resulted in the poor performance of the present dispensation. Joshi, who on Sunday had first hand experience of the implementation of village road construction under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act...

In order to maintain transparency and direct control on the executing agencies in the MNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Agency) scheme, district magistrate Sanjay Prasad has ordered for conducting a social audit. He has also deployed about 82 officers for conducting social audits in the rural areas. These officers have also been allotted gram panchayats where they would conduct social audits. The officers have been instructed to conduct social...

Government has set up an expert group to devise better methods to achieve convergence of MGNREGA activities with that of various water conservation and management programmes. The 30-member expert group, constituted by the Rural Development Ministry, will be headed by the CEO of the National Rainfed Areas Authority. "It has been decided to constitute an expert group to devise process, methodologies and mechanisms for convergence of Mahatma Gandhi NREGA with...