-The Hindu Draft Bill to be discussed on Tuesday After legislating the Right to Information and Education — and making a stab at the Right to Work and Food through the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural employment Guarantee Act and the Food Security Act respectively — the government’s next step seems to be aimed at legally upholding the right to a home of your own. On Tuesday, a task force set up by the...

-Rising Kashmir Srinagar: The criterion for laborers getting wages with Mahatma Gandhi National Rural employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in Bandipora villages is not a job card but a rooster. “Even if you have worked efficiently, you will be paid wages only if you have a desi rooster to gift the officials,” locals from various Bandipora villages said. Alleging corruption in the release of funds, people from Zaban Chuntimulla said authorities were not releasing...

-First Post With 10 state assembly elections this year and the general election in the next, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) faces possibly its sternest challenge since it returned to power in 2009. It goes without saying that the forthcoming electoral tests have been compounded by the perceptibly declining political standing of the ruling alliance caused by multiple scams and economic stagnation. In addition, defeats in a series of elections ranging...

-Down to Earth Budget to start process of reforming Central rural schemes, 45 years after first demand India’s rural development programmes are in for an overhaul. After the approval of the 12th Plan by the National Development Council (NDC) on December 27, 2012, the government has started restructuring of the behemoth called Centrally sponsored schemes (CSSs). In the Plan (2012-17) the Centre has committed Rs 541,276 crore for CSSs covering rural development,...

-Outlook Dehradun: Yoga guru Ramdev's Patanjali Yogpeeth will go to court against the Himachal Pradesh government order cancelling the land lease given to it by the previous BJP government in the state. "We will take legal recourse to challenge the Himachal Pradesh government's order cancelling our land lease at Solan (in HP)," Ramdev's close aide Balkrishna told reporters in Haridwar yesterday. Accusing the Congress government in Himachal Pradesh of cancelling the lease at...