Recently an interesting article appeared in The New York Times on how after the completion of a social audit at Nagarkurnool in Andhra Pradesh, villagers punished a local official for swindling funds allocated to the central government's flagship project, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme. The irate villagers tied the official's hands and paraded him around the neighbouring villages. This is not a one-off incident; similar accounts have...

Mumbai is all set to have a new airport as the Environment Ministry gave a green signal to the Navi Mumbai airport project. However, the question of rehabilitating 15000 villagers from the site has run into some turbulence.While the residents of Waghiwali village carry on with their daily tasks, there is an air of uncertainty in the village. Waghiwali is one of the 10 villages that will make way for...

Social exclusion of children belonging to marginalised groups and barriers to children's access to their rights-based entitlements were highlighted as crucial issues confronting the society at a workshop on children's rights here recently. Activists said children being forced to work as labourers was an “abysmal failure” of all institutions.The day-long workshop was organised jointly by Save the Children, Prayatna, Society for All Round Developemnt (SARD), Consumer Unity and Trust Society...

Chief minister Arjun Munda has urged bankers and financial institutions to join hands with the state administration to launch a water conservation campaign to prevent a third consecutive drought in Jharkhand next year.Addressing officials of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) today at a meet on the bank’s credit plan for 2011-12, Munda said recurrent droughts had upset the state’s economy. He admitted the farmers were going through...

Union minister of state for Agriculture, K V Thomas, today said Kerala, which had not fully utilised the allocation of Rs 700 crore under the Vidharba package, should utilise the remaning nearly rs 400 crore for Organic cultivation.About rs 400 crore was yet to be utilised and this could be made use for propagating organic cultivation in the the state, thomas said at the sidelines of a function here.The miniser...