-The Hindu Kerala’s Kudumbashree network and the rural employment guarantee scheme have converged to provide a unique model of empowerment An incredible story of empowerment has been unfolding in the wake of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) programme in the State of Kerala. This is the story of how a socially engineered convergence of the scheme with PANCHAYATI RAJ institutions and the State sponsored community network of poor...

-The Hindustan Times India contributes more hungry people to the world each year than all other countries put together, and despite efforts, new figures suggest that hunger is far from contained - in fact we are worse off than we were more than a decade ago. According to the Global Hunger Index 2012, recently released by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). India's rating was 22.6 in '96, 24.2 in '01...

-Outlook In his maiden visit to Naxal-hit Chhattisgarh, President Pranab Mukherjee today praised the "young state" for its all-round development. Asserting that Chhattisgarh has a rich legacy of one of the oldest PANCHAYATI RAJ systems, he said it has emerged as one of the fastest developing states in the country. "This young state has registered all round development on many fronts and made its presence felt at the national level," he said in...

-Mail Today   THE edifice of Arvind Kejriwal’s guerilla war on politicians and big business has been bankrolled by corporate big wigs who donated to his Public Cause Research Foundation. India Against Corruption, which has unfurled the banner of revolt against all- pervasive corruption, actually draws its lineage from Public Cause Research Foundation. And if you were wondering where the movement got sustenance from, strangely it came from a combination of businessmen and bankers. They...

-Frontline After the year-long Jansamvad Yatra and Jansatyagraha, the Ekta Parishad has a written commitment from the Rural Development Ministry to advance land reforms.  Celebration and caution. These sentiments dominated the deliberations of senior activists of the Ekta Parishad as they gathered at Delhi’s Gandhi Peace Foundation office on October 18, one week after the organisation and the Union government had signed a 10-point agreement to advance land reforms. The agreement had...