West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, now on a tour of the State's drought-hit areas, has said that the prime task before the government was to save whatever crop had been sown in the 11 districts where cultivation had been badly affected by the errant monsoon. Protecting Livelihoods was also very important, he said. “Our first task now is to save whatever crop has already been cultivated by the farmers in...

In some remote villages in India, which are most unlikely to pose as models of development, a quiet rejuvenation is taking place, with communities learning to adapt to the climate change reality of the country today. Everyone knows by now that one of the foremost signs of climate change for the country is the changing pattern of the monsoon. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has already forecast shorter yet...

Rural folk living on the outskirts of Kolkata have welcomed the various employment opportunities generated through financial aid by the Government social schemes like the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) and the Swarnajayanti Gram Sarojgar Yojana (SGSY). The villages here are witnessing a slow, but steady impact of various poverty alleviation schemes being implemented by Panchayats (village councils) and West Bengal's Rural Development Department. The formation of self-help groups (SHG) along...

Four days after a government-appointed expert panel recommended that Vedanta Resources should not be allowed to go ahead with its bauxite mining project in the Niyamgiri hills of Orissa, the Congress announced that its general secretary Rahul Gandhi would be visiting Niyamgiri on August 26. In a report to Minister of Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh, the expert panel headed by N C Saxena, a retired IAS officer who is a...

Anganwadi workers, women’s self-help groupsand accredited social health activists from across the state gathered at the Azad Maidan on Wednesday to protest against the government’s decision of distributing instant packaged food in anganwadis as supplementary nutrition. “Anganwadis are supposed to provide fresh, nutritious food to pregnant women and children till six years of age. The government has instead started providing ready-to-eat food packets to them,” said Sonya Gill, president, all India...