Budget 2011-12 and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. THREE decades ago, in the early years of the Special Component Plan (SCP) for Scheduled Castes – very recently renamed inappropriately as Scheduled Castes Sub-Plan (SCSP) – Indira Gandhi on her return as Prime Minister wrote two historical D.O. letters dated March 12, 1980, one to Central Ministers and the other to State Chief Ministers, regarding the SCP in the Central...

Outlining targets, agenda along the lines of UPA's promises in 2009 polls Agro techniques to improve land fertility, distribution through ‘land bank' Brimming with promises to revamp a wide range of sectors, including industry, agriculture, health and education, as well as bring about holistic development in the weaker sections of the society, the election manifesto that Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee released here on Monday for the coming Assembly polls in the...

The Centre is likely to send a team of experts to Jharkhand to monitor the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) that it believes has been taken over by a contractors’ mafia allegedly behind recent murders of an activist and labourer associated with the job scheme. In an exclusive interview to The Telegraph, Union secretary for rural development B.K. Sinha refused to give out names, but insisted that the...

The Budget season is in full swing and allocations for various sectors being hotly debated upon both by policy makers and the public at large. What is important to remind ourselves, is that where this will lead this country of over one billion, facing challenges of balancing economic growth with social justice and equity. Food Security has moved from an issue of the poor and hungry and those who advocate their cause...

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...