-The Times of India JAIPUR: A village Panchayat in Jhunjhunu district's Udaipurwati area has banned girls below the age of 18 years from using mobile phones in the village. The Panchayat has also issued an order that girls should wear stoles while going out of their homes. The orders have been issued by the Kishorpura village Panchayat. According to the Panchayat members, these orders were issued so that girls are not "spoiled"...

-The Times of India PANAJI: Officers not furnishing information on time may land in trouble as the State Information Commission (SIC) has already penalized two Panchayat secretaries of Penha da Franca Panchayat and Siolim-Marna Panchayat. The SIC, hearing the Sachin Kalokhe petition for delay in furnishing information under RTI Act, imposed a penalty of 7,000 on the Penha da Franca Panchayat secretary and directed that the amount of penalty should be recovered...

-The Hindu Business Line Hyderabad, Aug. 24: The Andhra Pradesh Government has announced new guidelines for sand mining in Agency (tribal) areas of Khammam and Warangal to bring transparency and accountability. According to the guidelines issued by the Government, the Andhra Pradesh Mineral Development Corporation Ltd has initiated steps to start sand operations under the control of gram Panchayats and tribal societies. This will be under the supervision of district collectors and...

Two sets of government data on UPA government's most famous flagship programme Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), for which Rs. 33000 crore was earmarked in 2012-13 budget, provide widely different figures for several states, a feature which experts say is indicative of the corruption in the scheme and weakness of social audit or accountability. The government has increasingly relied on Management Information System (MIS) for monitoring NREGA at...

-Live Mint The Sonia Gandhi led-National Advisory Council (NAC) on Friday formed a working group on universal health coverage for phasing-in the roll-out of the proposed scheme in the 12th Five-Year Plan period. Meanwhile, differences persist between the health ministry and the Planning Commission on the role of insurance and the private sector within the universal health coverage (UHC) plan. Health ministry and Planning Commission officials presented their views to the NAC on...