In a major revision of the policy for rehabilitation & resettlement of landowners framed in 2005, the Haryana government has almost doubled the land acquisition rates in Gurgaon and substantially increased those in other parts of the state. Announcing this at a Press conference here today, Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda said that Haryana has been divided into five zones - instead of the earlier three - for the purpose...

India's power revolution seems to have run out of steam due to transmission and distribution losses. The country is losing a huge quota of power to faulty distribution networks and power theft every year. The losses, experts say, are currently 29 %of the total generation, which equals a shocking Rs 45,000 crore in the fiscal year 2009-10 . The drop in losses since 2001 is a negligible 3% . President...

Members of the National Advisory Council (NAC) Aruna Roy and Jean Dreze have accused the UPA government of being “increasingly anti-labour” in their assessement of the national rural employment guarantee programme, on its fifth anniversary. With support from several activists associated with the government’s flagship social sector scheme, they have alleged that the “contractor mafia”is increasingly dominating in the states, minimising the potential to create remunerative employment through the programme. According to...

GUMLA: Now water will reach the fields of Gumla villages without electricity, diesel or kerosene in the district. This will be possible with application of siphon and gravity based irrigation project. The minor irrigation division in Gumla is all set to launch its first such project on old reservoir at Bendora village under Chainpur block of the district soon. Later, other big reservoirs like Narma in Bishunpur block and others...

The Union government plans to empower the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), which currently oversees the work of state agencies and state-owned companies, to investigate complaints against its flagship rural jobs scheme. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) promises 100 days of annual work to one member of every rural household. CVC currently has to route complaints about irregularities in the scheme’s execution to a state chief secretary or the...