-The Times of India NEW DELHI: A gram panchayat's success in reducing poverty will be judged by the number of households with over Rs 20,000 in savings bank accounts or percentage of families with Aadhaar-linked bank accounts. Or, by the percentage of its households which have availed over Rs 20,000 as bank credit. Interestingly, higher the number of households with bank loans for "diversified livelihood", the better the village would be assessed...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar today highlighted "contradictions" in the Narendra Modi government's anti-Maoist policy, accusing it of stopping key security and development schemes in the rebel zones. He questioned the utility of convening security review meetings with the chief ministers of the Maoist-hit states - like the one held in Delhi today - when the Centre was not releasing funds to fight the rebels. Union home minister Rajnath...

-The Times of India BHUBANESWAR: After facing turbulent times for 12 years, the state government finally brought the curtain down on the much-hyped mega Posco steel project as it cancelled the 1880 acres of land allotted to the South Korean company. The Odisha Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (idco), state's nodal agency for land acquisition, has intimated to the Posco company the government's decision to withdraw the land allotted for setting up...

-India Today Each year a huge number of rural assets are created under MGNREGA. Ministry of Rural Development achieved a milestone today by successfully geotagging one crore assets created under flagship rural employment program MGNREGA. The geotagged assets have been shared in public domain. Each year a huge number of rural assets are created under MGNREGA. Since it started in 2006-07, more than 2.8 crore assets have been reportedly created. That makes...

-The Hindu Business Line Karnataka, the first State to formulate an organic farming policy way back in 2004, has stepped up measures to spread the concept among farmers in recent years. Also, it has been working on rebuilding farmers’ interest in millets through incentives such as guaranteed buy-back and a bonus over the minimum support price. To provide market linkages to the over 1 lakh organic farmers in the State, the Karnataka government...