The visit of Union rural development secretary, B K Sinha, to inquire into the killing of MGNREGS worker Subal Mahto here at Bathua village on Sunday has not only exposed serious irregularities in the schemes but also negligence on part of officials in supervising the work. Sinha s visit seems to have been prompted after Bokaro DC Amitabh Kaushal took action against four persons including two officials in this regard. Kaushal...

Chief minister Arjun Munda today asked director-general of police (DGP) G.S. Rath to speed up the probe into Niyamat Ansari’s killing and book the guilty at the earliest, hours after the CPI(Maoist) claimed responsibility for the March 2 murder. The development came on a day the DGP dubbed the slain MGNREGS activist a “man of debatable character”. Last night, some Maoist pamphlets in which the banned outfit claimed that it had carried...

Member, Central Employment Guarantee Council, Sanjay Dixit has asked the Centre to stop release of MGNREGS funds to district Sonbhadra. He also demanded that a probe by a Central agency be set up into the charges of diversion of funds. Talking to mediapersons on Friday, Dixit alleged that "the state government, in a well-calculated move, is trying to cover the corruption trail in Sonbhadra, which is alarming". The funds must be...

In a unique move to curb corruption in the public distribution system (PDS), ration coupons in Bihar will be bar-coded from June. The next set of PDS coupons —a for June 2011 to May 2012 — has gone into print and will have bar code to prevent duplication. A bar code is a group of thin and thick lines printed on products you buy in a shop, and which a computer...

An activist working for the implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme was killed after being caned continuously at Jerua village in Latehar district. The activist, Niyamat Ansari, a close aide of noted economist Jean Dreze, died after a group beat him with lathis, police said. The rebels reportedly dragged him out of his residence at 7 PM and started beating him up mercilessly. He was admitted to a local hospital...