The sarpanches of Rajasthan who have been opposing social audit by NGOs in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) now have a supporter at the Centre. Union minister for rural development and panchayati raj, C P Joshi on Thursday said the Act governing the scheme had provisions that the audit be done by the gram sabha. "Section 13(B) of the Act provides that the gram sabha have...

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...

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...

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   • Section 105 of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, which provides for excluding 13 Central legislation, including Land Acquisition (Mines) Act 1885, Atomic Energy Act, 1962, Railway Act 1989, National Highways Act 1956 and Metro Railways (Construction of Works) Act, 1978, from its purview, has been amended for payment of compensation with rigours $ • The amendments have now...