Blackboard 2002: A for attack; B for bomb; C for cops… Blackboard 2012: A for apple; B for ball; C for cat… Jamshedpur, Nov. 20: More than 500 students in some 15 primary and middle schools in forest villages of a reclaimed Saranda in West Singhbhum are looking forward to a paradigm shift in their ABCs of academic life, courtesy the CRPF. The central paramilitary force has taken up the daunting task of...

An independent study says some 250 thermal power projects that have got clearances may be meant just to grab land and water resources. THERE have been a growing number of headlines that speak of an energy crisis and the energy deficit in India in the last few years. The disparities in the demand-supply scenario, the increasing prospects of disruptions in the global supply of fuel and the consequent results of higher...

After being mired in controversies across the nation over multi-crore scams, the MGNREGA scheme hasn’t quite made headway in Bulandshahr district’s Anupshahr yet, say Bhamati Sivapalan and Yamini Deenadayalan “MGNREGA is a flop in Uttar Pradesh,” extended NGO worker Manish Sharma, as small talk, at the block development office of Anupshahr in the Bulandshahr district of Uttar Pradesh. Despite having been in force since 2005, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment...

At BANCON (annual bankers' conference) 2011 in Chennai, financial institutions explored avenues for greater participation in agriculture and rural development. There are a few areas in need of additional attention and investment. Green Revolution technologies are scale-neutral but not resource-neutral. Inputs are needed for output; therefore market-purchased inputs become important in providing soil and plant healthcare for higher yields. Social scientists point out that small and marginal farmers will be excluded...

The Congress rules state and the centre, but money set aside for Rajasthan’s malnourished tribal children does not reach dysfunctional crèches and other urgent needs Three-year-old Bagmati Sahariya lies listlessly on a string cot inside an unlit mud-and-thatched home in Baran district’s Amrod village, 292km south of Rajasthan’s capital Jaipur. When her father Janki Lal (36), a daily wage labourer, lifts her on his shoulder, her bony hands and legs dangle...