Plans to set up 150 farmer-producer organisations in 11 states. The government is planning to provide market linkages for farmers growing pulses as part of a programme announced in the Budget to improve their production, as scarcity of this essential item was one of the major contributors to food inflation a few years back. “The share of pulses growers in the consumer price is very low on account of a lack of...

Surrounded by lush green wheat and yellow flowering mustard fields at Ekdanta primary school, it is noon and the 57 children in two combined classes are fidgety - impatient for the school served midday meal. The hot meals are served by the Akshaya Patra Foundation, the largest non- profit in India, in partnership with the government’s school meal programme that covers 120 million children in 1.26 million schools across the country. A...

If reports as appearing in a section of the local media are to be believed, several crores of funds under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) have been siphoned off “under the DAN government”. Detailed charges have been put up by the Nagaland Pradesh Congress Committee (NPCC) against the large scale misuse of public fund under the MGNREGA by the present ‘DAN government”. The charges have been...

Pune district administration inspects hill city site Report to be submitted to Environment Ministry We have the required permissions: Lavasa A site inspection of the Lavasa hill city conducted by the Pune district administration has revealed that 7,78,86, 600 cubic feet of mining has been conducted in two villages by Lavasa Corporation Limited (LCL). The comprehensive data regarding the remaining 17 villages is still being consolidated by the authorities, according to Pune Additional...

The Union ministry of rural development is thinking of referring the two recent MGNREGS-related murders in Jharkhand to the CBI after arriving at the conclusion that the job scheme has been taken over by a contractors’ mafia in the state. According to a highly placed source in the ministry, the Centre was now convinced that the Jharkhand government was not taking adequate measures to undo the wrongs in the scheme. “Since...