Ahead of next year’s assembly elections, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government plans to revise a proposed food security law to bring it in line with a previous draft that is deemed more liberal, and expedite its execution. Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who also heads the National Advisory Council (NAC) that drafted the initial National Food Security Bill, has suggested some crucial changes to the version that was made public...

-PTI   The trustworthiness of the administration among tribal population is “very low” due to unresolved land issues that have led to escalation in Maoist menace, Union Minister of Rural Development Jairam Ramesh said here on Saturday. Issues such as forcible eviction of people for land acquisition for projects, unsettled rehabilitation packages, degradation and unproductivity of land given to the poor have aggravated the Maoists’ menace in the Central and Eastern parts of...

Primary education was made compulsory through a central Act a year and a half earlier, but that’s done little to raise the quality of teaching or learning in schools. Several students of class III were not able to read texts of class I, teachers were missing from classrooms, and the government derives achievement from enrolment without factoring in attendance, found a report published by non-profit body Pratham with support from UNESCO...

Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh on Friday dubbed as completely bogus Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati's charge that his letter seeking her concurrence for a CBI probe into alleged embezzlement of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) funds was politically motivated. Reacting to Ms. Mayawati's letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Mr. Ramesh denied her charge of taking up with her the fraud committed in seven districts — siphoning...

The report will be made available to all States Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh on Thursday said his Ministry would make available to States the details of audit by the Comptroller and Auditor-General into rural development expenditure. “There was some ambiguity on this. I do not want any ambiguity whatsoever. All rural development expenditures of the Central government will be subjected to CAG audit in all States. I have had three...