In March this year, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) raided the houses and businesses of a few top industrialists in Dhanbad, jharkhand, home to one of the subsidiaries of India's biggest coal miner, Coal India (CIL). Dhanbad is more widely known in popular imagination as home of the infamous 'coal mafia', which spread a reign of terror across the coal mining districts of the then undivided Bihar in the...
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NREGA widens gaps between states by Subhomoy Bhattacharjee
Five years into the implementation of the right to work programme, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) has the potential to create even sharper division between states than what existed before it was launched. This is becoming increasingly clear through reports like the second report of the National Consortium of Civil Society Organisations on NREGA, released last week in Delhi by rural development minister Jairam Ramesh. It is...
More »Coal mining: Centre dumps 'go, no-go', dubs it illegal by Neeraj Thakur
Less than two years after splitting coal mining zones into ‘go and no-go’ — a move that has stalled almost every big-ticket coal mining project in India — the government is scrapping the policy. The Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF), which had framed the policy guidelines along with the Ministry of Coal, on Tuesday accepted that the categorisation of ‘go and no-go’ did not have any legal sanctity. The move was...
More »CAG: Less than half of MG-NREGA schemes completed in 2009-10
-PTI Only 47 per cent of the schemes taken up under MG-NREGA were completed in 2009-10 in jharkhand, says the CAG report. "...Out of a total 160813 schemes only 75,767 schemes completed at the end of 2009/10," said the CAG report for the year ended March 31, 2001, which was placed during the recently concluded monsoon session of the assembly. "Out of a total available funds of Rs 1916.29 crore only Rs 1379.70...
More »Maoists apologize for Niyamat murder by Jaideep Deogharia
Maoists have apologized for killing MGNREGA activist Niyamat Ansari. In a release issued by Koyal Shankh zonal committee of the CPI-Maoist, its spokesperson Dinbandhu said the rebels owned up the responsibility for the killing in April, describing it as unfortunate. "He was killed not because of his role as an MGNREGA activist, instead he along with his associate Bhukhan Singh was found guilty of capturing forest land in Jerua village for agricultural...
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