Planning Commission Member, Professor Abhijit Sen, has observed that bad management of food grains and a high economic growth rate, particularly in the non-agricultural sectors, had led to spiralling prices of food grains. Prof. Sen was delivering the Prof. L S. Venkataramanan Memorial Lecture on ‘Inclusive Growth', at the Institute for Social and Economic Change, here on Thursday. Prof. Sen said the economic growth rate of 9 per cent led to increased...

The District Administration in Koraput seems to have geared up towards performing remarkably in NREGA in the coming days. Involving credible NGOs, the district is going for social Audit of NREGA in the district. Social Audit is an important means of wider transparency in NREGA and the result of the process could provide important directions for better performance in future, Rupa Roshan Sahoo, the project director of DRDA , Koraput said...

The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), the Union government’s flagship scheme to improve healthcare services in rural areas, is likely to be extended by three years to 2015, two senior health officials said. NRHM, which completes five years of implementation on Monday, seeks to reduce infant and maternal mortality rates, prevent disease, control population and ensure gender balance in rural India, according to the government website. It was launched in 2005 as...

* Documentary evidence gathered by the Central Employment Guarantee Council (CEGC) from Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Rajasthan points to large-scale embezzlement in nrega projects * Panchayats often furnish fake bills and fictitious companies have been floated to divert funds * Hundreds of crores are lost to this sort of leakage * The CAG, too, has pointed out  large-scale irregularities and corruption in the implementation of NREGA projects...

Concerned over disturbing trends in the media, including commercialisation and trivialisation of content, corporatisation of the sector and the phenomenon of paid news, the call for a “media watch group” was made at a round table discussion on “Markets, Media and Democracy” here on Tuesday. “There is a need for a public Auditing of the media, declaration of the revenue earned and checking on fraudulent news. It would be done best...