A labourer has been killed by the Maoists as he refused to pay extortion money at Dungri village in Palamau district, the police said here today.Raj Dev Turi (42) was dragged out from his house by a dozen armed Maoists and shot him dead last night after he refused to pay them 'levy' (extortion), Deputy Superintendent of Police, Sudarshan Mandal, told newsmen here.Turi was working as a labourer in some...

Amid technical and infrastructural constraints, Maharashtra has rolled out 1.2 million Aadhaars, but the beneficiaries have been able to make little use of these numbers Ashok Bhil, a 25-year-old graduate from Navalpur, 7 Km from Tembhli, is disappointed with the way the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is rolling out Aadhaar in Maharashtra. Last September, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government chose Tembhli, a small village in the predominantly tribal Nandurbar...

Taking a serious note of the increasing complaints of filling of ponds by land sharks, the state government has issued strict directives to the departments concerned to prepare a list of water bodies and initiate measures for their renovation. Talking to media on Monday, principal secretary (revenue and relief) KK Sinha said the state government had issued directives to all districts to prepare a list of water bodies on the basis...

Cotton production is expected to be 6.8 million tonnes (40 million bales of 170 kg each) in 2011-12 as soaring prices could spur the farmers to boost planting, according to a report. Cotton production stood at 33.9 million bales in 2010-11 crop year (July-June), as per the government's second advance estimate released in February. "The market expects the cotton output to reach a new high of 6.8 million tonnes (4 crore bales)...

The issue regarding the seemingly poor response to the national rural employment guarantee scheme ( NREGS) of the central government dominated the proceedings of the gram sabha of the Chandor village panchayat held on Sunday. It was pointed out that several cardholders under the UPA government's flagship project had later failed to undertake the work allotted to them, thus crippling the progress of the scheme in the village. The program officer...