-The Economist   A maverick minister lays into a hallowed programme IT LOOKS like risky politics for Jairam Ramesh, who runs India’s biggest civilian ministry, in charge of rural development, to lash out at his own government’s flagship welfare scheme. Mr Ramesh, who got his cabinet post in July, has sparked a row in the past week over corruption and poor results within a public programme that guarantees 100 days of paid work...

Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh’s suggestion to bring the national Rural Employment guarantee scheme (NREGS) under the state rural development department has widened the rift between the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). Jairam wrote to chief minister Prithviraj Chavan, suggesting that the EGS be brought under the state rural development department (RDD) for effective implementation in September this year, but in a reply, dated October 7, Chavan bluntly...

The Congress rules state and the centre, but money set aside for Rajasthan’s malnourished tribal children does not reach dysfunctional crèches and other urgent needs Three-year-old Bagmati Sahariya lies listlessly on a string cot inside an unlit mud-and-thatched home in Baran district’s Amrod village, 292km south of Rajasthan’s capital Jaipur. When her father Janki Lal (36), a daily wage labourer, lifts her on his shoulder, her bony hands and legs dangle...

Caught in the middle of a maelstrom of controversies, the Planning Commission has been accused of being disconnected from ground realities. Its 12th Plan hopes to fix that. A short while ago, the Congress general secretary and scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, Rahul Gandhi, remarked that members of the Planning Commission are not in touch with the ground realities in India. He could have been somewhat influenced by his father, former...

Less than half the funds allocated to the rural development ministry in the current fiscal year for programmes, including the rural job guarantee plan, have been utilized. This is slower than last year, but the government contends tighter monitoring has prevented misuse of funds. The ministry has released Rs.30,846 crore to states in the first six months of the year, or 42% of the Rs.74,100 crore that has been allocated to...