-The Hindu   Apart from ensuring the immediate appointment of 18,000 panchayat development officers and as many junior engineers, the Centre has drawn up a blueprint to provide jobs to three-lakh youth in the 60 left wing extremist affected districts in the country. Union Minister of Rural Development Jairam Ramesh, in his consolidated note for the approval of the Empowered Group of Secretaries for the Integrated Action Plan (IAP) under Planning Commission member...

Maharashtra has been struggling with a declining child sex ratio and is ranked among the five worst states in the country. The reasons are the same as elsewhere: preference for a male child. But in a shocking indicator of how extreme this desire is and how deep-rooted the bias against the girl child can get, scores of families across Maharashtra have simply named their daughters ‘Nakushi’ or ‘Nakusha’—meaning ‘unwanted’ in...

The former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam president, M. Karunanidhi, met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi here on Saturday and discussed, among other things, the Kudankulam atomic power project in Tamil Nadu vis-a-vis the ongoing agitation by the locals apprehending safety. According to informed sources, while Mr. Karunanidhi sought to emphasise the need for the Centre to allay the fears of the local villagers...

Vilas Bhagwan Pote grins as he recalls his election as sarpanch of Ralegan Siddhi, Anna Hazare’s village in Ahmednagar district, 11 years ago. “I was the traitor, the bad guy,” he jokes. “I openly defied Anna because I felt he was wrong.” Pote, a Dalit charmakar (cobbler) then in his 30s, had been unhappy as the 2000 panchayat polls drew close. As always, Anna had nominated a new executive body for the...

Environmentalists may be against the state government’s proposal to set up new ports along the coast, but experts feel that the state needs these facilities badly to make the most of the cargo boom expected in the next 10 years. They have also extended support to chief minister Naveen Patnaik’s campaign against the Centre’s bid to restrict the powers of coastal states and union territories with regard to determining the jurisdiction...