Violence is back in West Bengal's Purba Medinipur district as the polling date for the 16 Assembly seats here draws close: Communist Party of India (Marxist) cadres are returning, under police protection, to the villages from where they fled in the wake of the Trinamool Congress' stunning successes here in recent elections. In West Bengal's ground zero, Nandigram — located in Purba Medinipur district — the problem is particularly acute. The...

700 million Indians have cell phones, but 638 million still don’t have access to proper sanitation. At this year’s South Asian Conference on Sanitation, social solutions to the problem were discussed, including “naming and shaming” and the CLTS programme which gets villagers to map the open areas where they defecate There can hardly be a bigger taboo than sanitation when it comes to the government, bureaucracy or even the people...

The scheme has reduced rural migration and promoted financial inclusion, but needs to create more durable assets. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) – the only government social welfare scheme named after the other Gandhi, not belonging to Nehru-Gandhi family – has recently completed five years. The performance of the scheme, considered a major pillar of UPA government's strategy of inclusive growth, has been a matter of debate. The...

The government on Monday told the Supreme Court that it had given its consent for a CBI probe into alleged corruption in the utilisation of National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) funds in Orissa. “The consent to have an investigation into the alleged misappropriation and diversion of funds for the scheme has been given by the minister concerned (Ministry of Rural Development),” Additional Solicitor General Indira Jaising told a bench headed...

After forming syndicates, the liquor mafia in Nizamabad district is now targeting young workers of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme ( MGNREGS) to rake in more moolah. Towards this end, the powerful mafia succeeded by roping in Village Development committees (VDCs) to help them open more belt shops in villages. Though it was illegal, a majority of these belt shops are being run in residential colonies, slum areas and...