-The Business Standard Industrial town Kalinga Nagar in Jajpur district on Monday observed Saheed Divas, marking the sixth anniversary of the violent clash between the tribals opposing land acquisition and the police forces that claimed 14 lives. The tribals were protesting the construction of boundary wall of the Tata Steel’s six million tonne steel project in the area when they clashed with the security forces. Those killed included 13 tribals and one...

-The Times of India   Longitudes and latitudes of schemes (earth works), especially of Integrated Action Plan (IAP) and MGNREGA schemes, are not taken into account, sources here said. Elaborate estimates are made but there is no mention of longitude and latitude of the site where either the IAP/MGNREGA scheme is to come up or is coming up. The longitude and latitude of the scheme site can be got easily with the help...

While some may view the food security Bill as the instrument of combating poverty, this distinction belongs to the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, the flagship anti-poverty programme of the United Progressive Alliance government. The proponents of the food security Bill at the National Advisory Council have promoted it as the instrument of fighting widespread and rising hunger, instead. But what is the empirical basis of the claims of widespread and...

A late-night crackdown by the police and paramilitary forces on anti-mega dam protesters in Lakhimpur district triggered raging protests at several places in Assam on Monday. The police arrested more than 200 protesters, who since December 16 had been blocking vehicles transporting equipment and construction materials, through National Highway 52, for the NHPC's 2,000-MW Lower Subonsiri hydroelectric project at Gerukamukh in Arunachal Pradesh. To protest the police action, five organisations, including the...

The rural development ministry has rejected suggestions to halt the government's flagship rural employment scheme during peak farming seasons, proposing instead to include some core agricultural activities in its ambit to address concerns of labour shortage. This compromise formula follows Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's intervention to resolve differences between the ministries of rural development and agriculture.Agriculture minister Sharad Pawar had called for halting MGNREGA works during sowing and harvesting seasons....