RTI advocators in Bihar have succeeded in prevailing upon the State Information Commission to impose penalties under The Right to Information Act (RTI Act) on two senior officers of the Madhubani  district administration. On 11th September, 2009 the Bihar Information Commission imposed the maximum penalty permissible under the RTI Act on the Additional District Collector (Apar-Samaharta) and the Circle Officer (Anchal Adhikari) for repeated contraventions of the RTI Act. The Commission...

VILLUPURAM: Collector R. Palanisamy has urged farmers to adopt the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) to improve yield and earnings. He was speaking at a special mass contact programme held in Chinnababusamudhram near here on Thursday. Mr. Palanisamy said the system required less water, manpower and seeds, but the yield would be one-and-half times that of traditional farming practices. He said mass contact programme was now being held on a rotation...

Ranchi, Sept. 21: As many as 21 families belonging to endangered tribes of Jharkhand haven’t been able to locate land given to them by the government 15 years ago, exposing the sham perpetuated by successive state governments professing their concern for the primitive tribes. This reality stared at the face of Ranchi deputy commissioner K.K. Soan and accompanying officials yesterday when they were visiting Basu Kocha and Jorebore villages of...

Close on the heels of Congress president Sonia Gandhi exhorting party members to act as “guardians of NREGA” in the August edition of party mouthpiece Congress Sandesh, Rural Development Minister C P Joshi has packed the apex body monitoring the implementation of UPA government’s flagship National Rural Job Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) with his partymen, edging out the original architects of the scheme. The Central Employment Guarantee Council (CEGC), the apex...

NEW DELHI: A combative rural development minister CP Joshi has defended packing a key NREGA advisory body with Congress MPs, saying he could not give space to people who were opposed to the UPA agenda. Joshi was battling questions on why only Congress MPs and social activists were made part of the Central Employment Guarantee Council when the RD ministry could have made it politically inclusive. Rejecting the charge, Joshi...