-The Business Standard Financial inclusion in Madhya Pradesh helps the Centre's cash transfer projects It may not take a century for villages in India to get banks, and villagers to own accounts. Madhya Pradesh is paving the way for financial inclusion. The state is suddenly full of excitement about what it considers is a feat. Its rural development department has hired publicity agents to spread the word that every villager in the...

-The Times of India Even as his drinking water and sanitation department tied up with DRDO on Thursday to set up bio-digestor toilets in 1,000 village panchayats across the country, Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh could not resist taking a couple of jocular swipes at the huge annual funds allocated to the defence ministry. Just the cost of a single Rafale fighter — MoD is finalizing the acquisition of 126 of...

-The Hindustan Times In June 1992, Manmohan Singh, then finance minister in the Government of India, delivered the Foundation Day Address of the Society for Promotion of Wastelands Development (SPWD). He spoke on the topic ‘Environment and the New Economic Policies’. In his talk, Singh urged “objective standards industry-wise for safeguarding the environment, asking industry to certify compliance with these standards, institution of an effective system of verification and industry audit...

-The Telegraph Jamshedpur: Work is underway on turning former Maoist hotbed West Singhbhum’s Manoharpur block into a hub of model villages sponsored by Union rural development ministry, a separate project that will operate simultaneously with the much-hyped Saranda Action Plan (SAP). The ministry headed by Jairam Ramesh has asked the state forest department to study all the 56 villages of the block and chalk out an integrated development project under the banner...

-The Telegraph Jharkhand High Court today ruled out return of land acquired by the state government in Nagri way back in 1957-58, even as it reproached public representatives for “blowing the issue out of proportion and misguiding the poor and illiterate”. The court also asked the government to translate all earlier court orders into Hindi and regional languages for circulation among the villagers so that they understood the issue better. “Land acquired cannot...