-The Financial Express The rural Development ministry has identified unrealistic planning at gram panchayat level, lack of quality assets created, inadequate capacity of functionaries, inadequate technical staff, lack of monitoring and delay in wage payment, as factors adversely impacting the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). The report on performance, initiatives and strategies (FY15-16 and FY16-17) for MGNREGA released by the rural Development ministry also identified issues...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Developers may have to pay 11.2 per cent interest to buyers for delay in handing over apartments and homes, according to draft rules unveiled by the government, a step seen as bringing relief to homebuyers reeling under the impact of delayed projects and mounting loan liabilities. The rules also say projects without a completion certificate will have to register with the Real Estate Regulatory Authority, to...

-The Times of India New Delhi: Veteran journalist P Sainath has made a strong demand for declaring agriculture a public service. He also believes there needs to be a special session of Parliament to discuss the farmer crisis and the decade-old report of National Commission of Farmers chaired by professor M S Swaminathan. The author of Everybody Loves A Good Drought delivered the inaugural lecture of a monthly lecture series planned by...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: For the first time ever, the Narendra Modi government is bringing out a performance review of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), highlighting the highest ever expenditure of Rs 56,000 crore undertaken in 2015-16 which includes Rs 12,000 crore paid in pending wages this year. The scheme generated 235 crore person days of wage employment, highest in last 5 years. However, it continued to lag in...

-The Hindu It has become irrelevant after the crippling budget cuts After facing a massive budget cut last year, the future of the Panchayati Raj Ministry continues to look bleak. After the BJP government shuttered two of its key programmes — the Backward Regions Grants Fund (BRGF) and the Rajiv Gandhi Panchayat Sashaktikaran Abhiyan (RGPSA) — several officials at the Ministry feel it would soon be closed down and turned into a...