-PTI   The Bihar government has decided to rope in professionals from the private sector to monitor the rural development schemes in state, Rural Development Minister Nitish Mishra said. "We have decided to hire the best brains from across the country to monitor ongoing rural development schemes inBihar, he said. The state government has already published ads in national dailies for inviting applications for the post of 32 executives and the recruitment of the...

Barely a month after being appointed Karnataka's anti-corruption ombudsman, Lokayukta Shivaraj V. Patil finds himself embroiled in allegations of impropriety in acquiring valuable sites in Bangalore. He was allotted a 9,600-sq.ft. plot at Allasandra in the Karnataka State Judicial Department Employees' House Building Cooperative Society in September 1994 and his wife was allotted a 4,012-sq.ft. plot at Nagawara in the Vyalikaval House Building Cooperative Society in October 2006. Documents available with The...

-MSN   A Parliamentary committee has said discrepancies have come to the fore in the working of the Postal Department and the Rural Development ministry in dissemination of wages to workers under the MGNREGA scheme. "The inputs provided by both the departments i.e. Department of Post (DoP) and Department of Rural Development (DRD) indicate contradiction on various aspects particularly on the number of account and amount disbursed through Post," the report tabled in...

-The Business Standard   The road to renewal of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Posco India seems to be bumpy with the officials of the steel firm and the Orissa government failing to reach a consensus even though the pact lapsed on June 21 last year. In the latest of their series of interactions with the state government, the Posco India officials on Wednesday met state Chief Secretary B K Patnaik and steel...

-The Business Standard   Even as Posco India is yet to submit a written response on the draft prepared for renewal of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Orissa government, the company is understood to have raised certain reservations over the omission of the iron ore swapping clause in the revised pact. While Posco has verbally agreed not to export iron ore from Orissa, the steel maker has requested the state government to...