-The Hindu   Apart from ensuring the immediate appointment of 18,000 panchayat development officers and as many junior engineers, the Centre has drawn up a blueprint to provide jobs to three-lakh youth in the 60 left wing extremist affected districts in the country. Union Minister of Rural Development Jairam Ramesh, in his consolidated note for the approval of the Empowered Group of Secretaries for the Integrated Action Plan (IAP) under Planning Commission member...

Today is the ''International Day for the Eradication of Poverty'', so it an appropriate day to note how necessary it still is to emphasise this concern among Indian policy makers. Sadly, lack of official awareness is evident in all sorts of recent policy measures, for example in the cynicism of increasing oil prices that feed into all other prices with cascading effects, even when inflation has already imposed huge burdens on...

The rural development ministry has drawn out a plan to spend as much as Rs 2 lakh crore on two of its major schemes — Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) and the Swarna Jayanti Gramin Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY). The ministry, however, has left it to the government and the plan panel to decide the timeline over which these funds should be spent. The plan panel has indicated that it wants...

-ANI   Expressing concern over the excess female and infant mortality rates in various states of the country, Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh has said that economic growth does not necessarily translate into gender equality.  "Economic growth does not automatically ensure gender equality. In fact, it is a very tenuous relationship between and I have something to say about this in the Indian context, but I think it is a very salutary finding...

-PTI   Kerala-based, all-women micro-lender Kudumbashree will soon sign a pact for providing consultancy services to the National Rural Livelihood Mission with the objective of scaling up this flagship programme of the Rural Development Ministry. Under the soon-to-be-inked agreement with the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM), a flagship programme of the Rural Development Ministry, Kudumbashree will offer its micro-enterprise consultancy services to the mission. "Kudumbashree will soon be signing a Memorandum of Understanding with...