-Live Mint This week marks the completion of six years of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). Six years is not a long period of time for any meaningful evaluation of a programme of such nature. However, even within this short period of time, the programme has attracted considerable attention. One part of this is the criticism of how the programme involved considerable leakages, did not create productive...
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Jairam Ramesh, Minister for Rural Development interviewed by Anil Padmanabhan & Elizabeth Roche
As minister for rural development, Jairam Ramesh oversees the largest spending in the social sector by the government. This includes the marquee Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) that was pioneered by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance in 2006. The minister, an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is known for his forthrightness. In a typically candid interview to Mint on...
More »Food authority backtracks by Savvy Soumya Misra
Says milk adulterated but not unsafe for consumption Six states and a union territory feed their people milk that does not meet the standards set by India’s food regulatory body at all. jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Mizoram and Daman & Diu are the “100 per cent non-conforming” states. In Delhi, 70 per cent of the samples failed the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) test. Yet, the...
More »Has Centre got dual policy on FDI in retail sector? Brinda Karat
-PTI The CPI(M) today asked the Manmohan Singh government whether it had a "dual policy" on FDI in the retail sector. "In Parliament the Centre said it would not move forward in FDI till a consensus evolved through discussions. In Davos Union Commerce Minister Anand Sharma told a Walmart representative that it had only pressed the pause button. Has the Centre a double policy on FDI in retail?" CPI(M) Politburo member Brinda...
More »jharkhand produces record Kharif crop
-IANS For the first time since its creation in 2000, jharkhand has produced more Kharif food grain than it consumes at a record 55 million tonnes -- almost double compared to previous years. "We expect the Rabi production to be around 10 million tonnes," an agriculture department official told reporters. The total consumption of food grain in jharkhand is around 50 million tonnes. As per record, the state has been producing 24-33 million...
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