World food prices hit a new record high in January after rising for a seventh consecutive month, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said Thursday, warning the poor would be hit hardest. The FAO Food Price Index, which monitors monthly price changes for a basket of commodities, averaged 231 points in January -- up 3.4 percent from December and its highest level since FAO started measuring food prices in...

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the United Progressive Alliance government’s flagship programme, has so far spent just 56 per cent of its Budget allocation of Rs 40,000 crore. It has also recorded a fall in the average number of workdays per household this financial year. Government managers are asking for a 60 per cent rise in allocation for the scheme in the next financial year. Rs 20,854...

A division bench of the Allahabad High Court has held that the government order issued on August 25 for holding a fresh selection for the appointment of `gram rozgar sewak' (village employment worker) after every three years, is constitutional and within the legislative competence of the state government. Through the order, the court has set aside the single judge order in a special appeal filed by the state government through...

Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) completes five years since its launch tomorrow. In order to commemorate the completion of the fifth year of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, the Ministry Of Rural Development is organizing Mahatma Gandhi NREGA Sammelan on Wednesday, the 2nd February ,2011 . Five years ago on the same day, the scheme was launched from Anantapur district in Andhra Pradesh with the objective...

Five years is a short period but the achievements are awesome. About ten crore poorest of India’s poor have opened personal accounts in banks or post offices; people demand work because it is their right; it has already regenerated ponds and water bodies and other community assets in thousands of villages; men and women get equal wages for equal work and ordinary people have a right to audit development works...