The all-crucial Below the Poverty Line (BPL) survey will not be completed ahead of the start of the 12th Five-Year Plan and consequently the execution of the promised food security entitlement, for which the government intends passing legislation in the coming Parliament session, will suffer. Following a review meeting with officials of all States here on Friday, Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh admitted that the deadline for conducting the Socio Economic...

-DNA   The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) might be doing good for the rural poor in helping them boost their income, but the scheme has emerged as a big threat to the traditional arts and crafts, said Jaya Jaitley who has pioneered handicraft movement in India. Jaitley, head of Dastkari Haat Samiti, is in Ahmedabad with around 90 artisans from different pockets in Indian states to exhibit their...

Child malnutrition in Gulbarga and Bijapur districts is a blot on Karnataka's image. Ba Ba Basavanna Anganwadi Hogona Avarekaalu Tinnona Ah, Aaa, Ee, Eee, Bariyona Mane Kadege Hogona (Come, Come, Basavanna Let's go to the anganwadi Let us eat beans And write A, B, C, D, And head towards home.) As Savitri Nimbad sings this ditty, the more than 20 children seated in a circle around her repeat each line in shrill voices. Almost all of them are between three and...

-The Indian Express   Bihar is ready with the draft for a new Lokayukta Bill, which it plans to finalise by November 26 before getting it passed in the winter session of the Assembly. It is the second state, after Uttarakhand, to have prepared or reworked its Lokayukta laws before the Centre haspassed a Lokpal Bill. Unlike the Bihar Lokayukta Act, 1973, the new law will bring the chief minister under the Lokayukta’s...

Government proposes to provide basic insurance coverage to an estimated 43 crore unorganized workers Furthering the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s objective of inclusive growth, the National Advisory Council (NAC) headed by Congress president Sonia Gandhi will discuss ways of bringing India’s unorganized workers under the social security net in its meeting on 29 November. A new NAC working group on social security is working on draft recommendations that will seek to...