-The Hindu Selected youth will work in LEW-affected districts Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh launched the Prime Minister's Rural Development Fellowship (PMRDF) programme here on Saturday. Under the programme, 156 youth selected for the fellowship would work in 78 Left-wing extremism (LWE)-affected districts covered in the integrated action plan (IAP) in nine States – Bihar, Orissa, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand for two years. Speaking...

The Samajwadi Party government is gearing up to include 17 OBC sub-castes into the scheduled castes.  A high-level committee headed by Uttar Pradesh chief secretary Jawed Usmani has sought details from the department of social welfare before issuing a notification in this regard. The circular from the UP chief secretary on March 28, too, speaks of the government's priorities, including the inclusion of 17 OBC sub-castes within the SC category.  If the...

Experts agree that the economic and environmental costs of interlinking India's rivers far outweigh its projected benefits. Some people believe it is the one-stop solution to prevent floods and droughts, reduce water scarcity, raise irrigation potential and increase foodgrain production in the country. But others say it is just another grandiose scheme involving huge costs and leading to long-term ecological consequences. The contentious idea of interlinking India's rivers has come...

The housing and houselisting census data do not paint a rosy picture of India in terms of basic amenities for its households. The data on household amenities and assets, released recently by the Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India, are a stark reminder of the immense disparities that exist in India in terms of basic entitlements such as electricity, sanitation facilities, proper drainage, and clean drinking and...

Two years after the ambitious Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 came into being, 95.2 per cent of schools are not yet compliant with the complete set of RTE infrastructure indicators, a civil society survey nationwide shows. And a shockingly high percentage, 93, of teacher candidates failed in the National Teacher Eligibility Test conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education in 2010-11. In 2009-10, the failure...