Two-and-A-half years ago, Kandhamal was tagged as a “national shame”, after communal violence triggered by the killing of a Hindu seer left 38 people dead, with houses and churches burnt and vandalised, and thousands of people homeless. But on February 2, Kandhamal is set to get a different tag — one of “national pride” — as the Union Ministry of Rural Development awards it for being one of the top 10...
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NREGS helps Kandhamal come out of communal hatred by Deba R Mohanty
Just two and half years ago, Kandhamal was India’s shame as a communal violence triggered by the killing of a Hindu seer left 38 people dead, thousands of houses and hundreds of churches burnt and vandalised and several thousand people scurrying to relief camps for safety. As Christian were slayed and attacked by VHP and RSS goons across the district, it forced Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to call it a...
More »Too Much Goodwill by Pragya Singh
NGOs To No Go’s * NGOs have mushroomed; so have instances of misappropriation of funds * Not disclosing expenditure and receipts; nor revealing who funds them * Not setting up NGO for the task it was funded for * Flocking to 'hot' topics, inviting accusations of singing to industrialists’ tunes * For every NGO supporting a cause, another springs up against that cause *** NGO numbers * 3.3 million Number of NGOs...
More »FDI rules for degraded land may be relaxed by Anindita Dey
Foreign direct investment (FDI) rules in agriculture may be relaxed, albeit only in non-farm wasteland and degraded lands. The Union ministry of agriculture and the department of land resources under the Ministry of Rural Development have given "in principle approval" to a proposal of the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) to invite FDI for developing non-arable land through better technology into fertile and cultivable land. Currently FDI in agriculture is...
More »Wages of tokenism by TK Rajalakshmi
The revised daily wage for NREGS workers is still lower than the minimum wages paid in several States. A CONTROVERSY seems to have surfaced between the Prime Minister's Office and the National Advisory Council (NAC) on the issue of wages under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). The NAC has been arguing for some time that there should be parity between wages under the National Rural Employment...
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