Directive comes in the wake of turmoil in Greater Noida Supplementing political offensive with a dose of administrative endeavour, in the build-up to the next round of Assembly elections, focussed on Uttar Pradesh, Prime Minster Manmohan Singh has asked Union Minister for Rural Development Vilasrao Deshmukh to finalise at the earliest the two amended Bills on land acquisition and rehabilitation and resettlement. Confirming Dr. Singh's directive, Mr. Deshmukh told The Hindu...

The backward Sehriya community in Rajasthan will now get work for 200 days instead of 100 days under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Gurantee Act (MGNREGA) this year, an official said."The state government has issued direction to provide job for 200 days per family in Sehriya community during the current fiscal year. The state government will bear the cost of additional 100 days," he said.The Gehlot government had announced the...

Gethi is such an inedible beetroot for most of us that it must be boiled overnight and dried thrice before the bitterness can be cut. Even after that, the faces of children pucker as soon as they put it in the mouth. A gethi looks like a misshapen potato with dark brown hairy strands that must be plucked clean. The Pahariyas of Borogora village in the lap of the Bagmundi jungles...

Tihar jail today has the largest collection of charged or convicted top officials, a powerful ex-minister, sundry politicians and officials. Maharashtra had a teflon-coated chief minister who was ‘sacked’ to a cabinet post in Delhi after being long untouched by many scandals. Another just exited. A former Jharkhand chief minister is in jail on charges of looting his state treasury and accumulating funds abroad. The powerful founder of the Nationalist...

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have blamed the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) for shortage of labour, which has led to increase in input cost of the products and eating into profit margins. "Now a days there is scarcity of labourers by 25 to 30 percent in SMEs. There is a high percentage of unskilled labour, which forms the core of employee recruitment in the local small and...