The implementation of the Scheduled Tribes and other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act in Madhya Pradesh faces a host of problems due to a strange interpretation of the Act by the Forest Department. While the department's opposition to the Act is no secret — several petitions have been filed against it in the Supreme Court by retired forest officials or organisations run by them — new information obtained...

All 12,800 villages of Punjab are set to get all 14 citizen services under one roof from December this year, with the Rs 91-crore prestigious proGramme of 3017 e-Gram at each Panchayat cluster becoming functional. After going through the presentation by Joint Secretary of Ministry of Rural Development and Panchayat DK Jain as well as the experience cited by service providers and multinational IT companies contending for this prestigious job, Deputy...

Plagued by power shortage but determined to find a way out, 10 villages in Karnataka have switched to solar power. Kerosene lamps and ‘chullahs’ are now things of the past. Anitha Pailoor documents this journey from darkness to light.d to light It’s half past eight in a tiny village called Neeralakatti, 15 km from Dharwad where Mangala is sitting at home, busy grading farm-picked brinjals as she has to send...

An Indian company that makes tiny loans to villagers aims to raise up to $354 million in an initial public offering, a move critics fear will encourage India’s largest microfinance lender to put shareholders above the poor it serves, The Associated Press writes. SKS Microfinance’s share sale, begun Wednesday, has already drawn the ire of one of the leading lights in the field. A publicly traded company’s traditional obligation is to...

Rural television viewers who want more than the half-an-hour of Krishi Darshan daily, there is good news. It may soon be beamed 24x7. The rural development ministry has decided to launch a 24-hour channel for India’s large rural population to make them “adequately aware” of the government’s umpteen schemes. Krishi Darshan would be the model — the proposed channel’s proGrammes would deal with agriculture, land, water and sanitation. But “it will have...