The government will set up statelevel independent bodies to carry out financial and social audits of its flagship rural employment guarantee programme, which critics say is riddled with corruption. The rural development ministry will also make it mandatory for state governments to submit a report on the social audit, which unlike other government audits, allows beneficiaries of the scheme to register complaints. The move to increase transparency in the Mahatma...

-The Telegraph   Bengal is the only state in India where maternal mortality rate has increased over a recent three-year period, although it is close to achieving key millennium development goal targets, indicating human and social development, for 2015. The findings of the latest nation-wide sample registration survey (SRS) shows that India’s maternal mortality rate (MMR), the number of women between 15 and 49 years dying from childbirth associated causes per 100,000...

-The Telegraph   The Mamata Banerjee government has kickstarted a process to hold talks with Maoists without mentioning conditions but acknowledged the responsibilities of governance by adding that central forces will remain until Jungle Mahal is cleansed of arms. The initiative also sought to address a fundamental issue often overlooked by the security and political establishments: the chief minister gave an assurance that the villagers will retain the right to forest resources so...

Teachers are running the school with the help of sponsors At a time when government primary schools are being closed down in many districts in the State owing to lack of students, this one in Devalapur village, on the outskirts of Sirguppa town in Bellary district, has become a model of sorts. The school provides the best infrastructure for its students and has managed to attract children from the lower strata of...

Boommi Gowda used to fear the night. Her vision fogged by glaucoma, she could not see by just the dim glow of a kerosene lamp, so she avoided going outside where king cobras slithered freely and tigers carried off neighborhood dogs. But things have changed at Gowda's home in the remote southern village of Nada. A solar-powered lamp pours white light across the front of the mud-walled hut she shares with...