A LEAFY VILLAGE in Kerala, Pathanpara, never found access to India’s electricity grid. That is why for the last several years, this village has been generating its own electricity. Raju, a dhoti-clad cashew nut farmer, operates Pathanpara’s five kilowatt (KW) micro hydropower plant. He lives in the village and earns a salary of Rs 2,250, paid by the People’s Electricity Committee (PEC). The power generated is shared equally by the village,...
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A toilet per second by Richard Mahapatra
Even at this rate India might fail to meet the millennium development goal on sanitation In April last year when a UN report said more Indians had mobile phones than toilets, it pointed to a major miss in the millennium development goal on access to sanitation in the country. The message was clear at the South Asian Conference on Sanitation (SACOSAN), the highest inter-governmental forum to discuss sanitation in the subcontinent,...
More »And Now, Some Facts... by Prashant Bhushan
A lot of misinformation has been spread regarding the allotment of farmland plots by the NOIDA authority to Jayant Bhushan and Shanti Bhushan. In this connection it has to be emphasised that: 1. This allotment was not made under any discretionary quota 2. The total price of the property is Rs. 3.67 crores (not Rs. 35 lacs, as has been quoted in many newspapers) plus Rs 9.18 lakhs per annum...
More »Everybody loves to fight poverty by Puja Mehra
It is not often that a social security programme the size of Mahatma Gandhi NREGS - New Delhi has spent Rs 40,000 crore on it in 2010/11 alone - faces an existential moment. But, April 2011 will present one such crossroad: the end of the term of a bureaucrat widely acknowledged as the prime mover behind the five-year old scheme. Brought in six years ago to the Centre from her parent...
More »MP government deposits procurement money in farmers' bank accounts by Mahim Pratap Singh
Over Rs.1,000 crore deposited Procurement process being monitored For the first time in India, the Madhya Pradesh government has directly deposited over Rs. 1,000 crore in the bank accounts of farmers against procurement of wheat in the last 25 days. This amount includes a bonus paid at the rate of Rs.100 per quintal. The direct deposit process aims at saving farmers from the clutches of middlemen and will be continued in the coming...
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