Children of a remote north-east village Dibrual Dehingio Gaon are now studying in nearby English medium schools, 40 people of Padamunda village in Orissa are employed in transportation business in nearby town and habitants of flood-prone regions of Bihar are no longer starving during rainy seasons; thanks to construction of rural roads under country’s flagship programme Bharat Nirman. Better connectivity has pushed up agricultural income in rural India by 17.6%...

"It is wrong to say that we will become a super cabinet. We are here to get the Indian bureaucracy to see reason to carry forward social projects related to areas like health, food, agriculture speedily and make sure that people like (Planning Commission deputy chairman) Montek Singh Ahluwalia gets the correct picture and figures on social issues," a member of the National Advisory Council told rediff.com. The member argued...

The poor utilization of funds meant for rural development continues unabated in Orissa, especially in the backward districts of the state. The pointer to this fact is the gross under-utilization of the funds under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MG-NREGA) in Kalahandi, one of the poorest districts in the state and the country. Out of the total available fund of Rs 56.6 crore for the district under MG-NREGA including the...

Some of the districts hit by India’s biggest internal security threat seem to have done as well or better than the rest of the country in one key development-related aspect, according to the government. Unlike other welfare schemes that fail to take off in any significant way in these areas, the performance of the flagship Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in 31 districts, around one-third of the total...

The word ‘Mitanin’ was derived from a Chhattisgarhi custom, where a ‘mitanin’ is a girl bonded ceremoniously in her childhood to another girl as a lifelong friend IT IS quite common for tractors in rural India to haul all kinds of unusual cargo. Even then, a late night emergency shuttle, from a small home in Narayanpaal village in the backward Bastar district of Chhattisgarh, to ferry a pregnant woman in...