Jharkhand has thrown up the sharpest signal of the link between urbanisation and diabetes in a survey covering three states and a Union territory. The study by the Indian Council of Medical Research and collaborating institutions, the first to cover entire states, has shown that 13 people in 100 have diabetes in urban Jharkhand but just three per 100 in the state’s rural areas. Projections from the survey, which has covered Jharkhand,...

Union minister for rural development Jairam Ramesh​ approved a plan to build a network of roads in rural Bihar under the ministry’s Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, clearing some of the hurdles that were holding up the construction. The ministry’s empowered panel on the rural road programme cleared the revised “core network” of roads for Bihar on 14 September. The core network includes all rural roads necessary to provide basic access to...

-The Telegraph   A Comptroller & Auditor General’s report, tabled in the Assembly today, has pulled up the state for poor implementation of a central government scheme for rural roads, pointing to substandard work, fraudulent payments to unscrupulous contractors and serious financial irregularities. Only nine per cent of rural habitations were connected with all weather roads under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) between 2005 and 2010, the five years that saw three...

-The Deccan Chronicle   Identification of work under the Rs 650 crore AP Rural Connectivity programme of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) has come to a halt in the state. A local bodies association from Nalgonda approached the High Court with a plea that the identification of work under the scheme should be entrusted to local bodies and not the government department. The High Court put a stay on further...

CGNet Swara in Chhattisgarh is a mobile radio platform that has helped bring tribal issues to national attention. MAHADEV SINGH, a Baiga tribal person, hails from a village situated atop a forested hill near Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh. While most of the neighbouring villages are electrified and welfare schemes from the government reach them to an extent, Mahadev's village has lost out in this regard owing to its inaccessibility. Mahadev and his...