VISHAL, the son of a farm labourer in the west Indian state of Maharashtra, is almost four. He should weigh around 16kg (35lb). But scooping him up from the floor costs his nursery teacher, a frail woman in a faded sari, little effort. She slips Vishal’s scrawny legs through two holes cut in the corners of a cloth sack, which she hooks to a weighing scale. The needle stops at...

While there is all-round concern about how the NREGA funds are being utilised at the grass-roots level, the Union rural development ministry has initiated the process of inducting technology to streamline the delivery system under NREGA. This will have a revolutionary impact on programme delivery. With about 50 million people working on site in 2,50,000 panchayats all across the country, the magnitude of the task is daunting. However, once the initial...

At August 30 meet, it was felt there should be a system of two prices, differential entitlements Since then, NAC Working Group on Food Security has had detailed discussions The Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) may be close to finalising the contentious Food Security Bill when it meets here on September 24. Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and officials from Ministries concerned, including Women and Child Development Secretary, will be...

Activists and many residents blame a hydel project for the growing frequency of landslides in some Uttarakhand villages. THE nearly 3,500 residents of Bhatwadi village along the Uttarkashi-Gangotri highway in Uttarakhand saw their world come crashing down around them on the night of August 12/13. A massive landslide that hit the village formed cracks up to five metres wide on the highway and these crept up the hills to over 100...

Farmers have a reason to cheer because the cabinet on Tuesday gave nod to the developed land compensation scheme of Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB). The scheme will do away with giving cash as compensation to land losers. Instead, they will get a whopping 9,583 sqft of developed land per every acre of land acquired by the KIADB. The compensation deal has been brought on par with the BDA...