-The Telegraph   The comptroller and auditor general today began a performance audit of the rural job scheme in 12 states, including Bengal, amid allegations of widespread corruption hobbling India’s largest social sector programme. The idea is to see whether the scheme has indeed secured villagers’ livelihood by providing guaranteed employment, and whether rules have been followed in its implementation. For instance, at least 60 per cent of the expenditure on every project under...

-The Economist   A maverick minister lays into a hallowed programme IT LOOKS like risky politics for Jairam Ramesh, who runs India’s biggest civilian ministry, in charge of rural development, to lash out at his own government’s flagship welfare scheme. Mr Ramesh, who got his cabinet post in July, has sparked a row in the past week over corruption and poor results within a public programme that guarantees 100 days of paid work...

The Congress rules state and the centre, but money set aside for Rajasthan’s malnourished tribal children does not reach dysfunctional crèches and other urgent needs Three-year-old Bagmati Sahariya lies listlessly on a string cot inside an unlit mud-and-thatched home in Baran district’s Amrod village, 292km south of Rajasthan’s capital Jaipur. When her father Janki Lal (36), a daily wage labourer, lifts her on his shoulder, her bony hands and legs dangle...

Less than half the funds allocated to the rural development ministry in the current fiscal year for programmes, including the rural job guarantee plan, have been utilized. This is slower than last year, but the government contends tighter monitoring has prevented misuse of funds. The ministry has released Rs.30,846 crore to states in the first six months of the year, or 42% of the Rs.74,100 crore that has been allocated to...

No doubt ,India is making progress by leaps and bounds in every sector but the condition of the Dalits in India is deteriorating day by day in the society .Development of any nation has no meaning when a particular section of the society such as the downtrodden are socially & economically segregated from the mainstream . The situation is critical when we measure the overall development of the country in...