-The Hindu The social audit meeting of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), held at Shettihalli in Hassan taluk on Friday, was marked by allegations of corruption against officers and heated exchange of words between residents and elected representatives. A few residents, allegedly in an inebriated state, constantly disrupted the meeting, forcing officials to take repeated breaks at the meeting. The meeting was organised as part of a social audit...

-The Hindustan Times From a crackdown on dubious charity contributions to encouraging the use of credit and debit cards, from tracking realty deals to monitoring jewellery purchases, the government has proposed a wide range of measures to combat black money. The proposals are part of the white paper on black money tabled in the Lok Sabha on Monday by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee. The white paper does not, however, disclose names...

Each year boys max out seats at the Indian Institutes of Technology. But the count of girls who secured JEE ranks has doubled to 2,886 since the last edition of the exam. Yet, the tech schools will on another front continue to be an unequal world: students from the IIT-Bombay zone (home to Kota) dominate the list of selected candidates. But the southern zone has bagged the credit for having...

-Down to Earth Biometric-based unique identity or Aadhaar is leading to huge problems for people working for the rural employment guarantee scheme and for others receiving welfare benefits. Not only have enrolments been done shoddily but the experience of the pilot projects shows that it is almost impossible to authenticate the work-hardened fingerprints of the poor, find Latha Jishnu and Jyotika Sood. Besides, there is the overwhelming issue of deficient online...

-The Deccan Herald   Thousands of tribals in the Yavatmal region bordering Andhra Pradesh will take to the streets in Pandharkawda Collectorate on Friday to press for a CBI probe into the alleged siphoning off over Rs 25 crores from schemes sponsored by the state and Central governments. The tribals, working under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), have not been paid since January 2012. The same goes for tendu leaf...