Collector, Senior Superintendent of Police transferred following reports of torching of villages A large group comprising Special Police Officers (SPOs) of the Chhattisgarh police and members of the Salwa Judum Attacked social activist Swami Agnivesh on Saturday as he attempted to deliver relief to a village allegedly torched by security forces in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada district. On March 23, The Hindu published reports and photographs alleging that SPOs had torched about 300 homes,...

Cutting across party lines, women Members of Parliament propose to set up pressure groups in both Houses to push for speedy clearance of a number of women-related Bills that are pending passage. The proposal was mooted at a meeting of women MPs, convened by Girija Vyas, chairperson of the National Commission for Women on Thursday. It was attended by 22 women MPs. Ms. Vyas suggested that women MPs, irrespective of their...

In letters to Prime Minister, he pitches for the project to continue and vouches for rehabilitation Digvijay urged Manmohan to get Environment Ministry to withdraw order suspending work He also said the State had made substantial progress in rehabilitation While he seldom misses an opportunity to Attack the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party government in Madhya Pradesh, documents recently accessed through the Right to Information Act show that the former Chief Minister and AICC...

Local communities without proper training might affect the outcome of the social audit planned for MGNREGS One criticism against the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) is that the scale of the programme defies its effective monitoring. In a country as diverse and large as India, monitoring huge social sector schemes often leads to the creation of an additional layer of bureaucracy. That may be about to change for...

India's rural innovators have proved that ordinary people are indeed capable of extraordinary inventions. Despite many constraints -- lack of education and severe cash crunch -- most of them have succeeded in using technology cost-effectively to build ingenious products. A washing-cum-exercise machine, hand operated water lifting device, portable smokeless stove, automatic food making machine, solar mosquito killer, shock proof converter, a floating toilet soap are few of the products on display...