-Bloomberg The corpse of Indian farmer Bengali Singh burned to ash atop a blazing funeral pyre on the banks of the river Ganges in 2006. Five years later, the dead man was recorded as being paid by India's $33 billion rural jobs program to dig an irrigation canal in Jharkhand state. Officials in his village and the surrounding region used at least 500 identities, including those of Singh, a disabled child of...

-The Indian Express Yavatmal: Works worth Rs 36 crore were completed in less than four months, supposedly a manual effort under the central employment scheme MNREGS, according to the Maharashtra's forest department. An inquiry ordered by the district collector has found it was made possible by a collusion between forest officials and contractors, who allegedly used machines. Works worth Rs 32 crore were done in only nine of 56 gram panchayats in...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: Indian villages are powering their own economy, but contrary to conventional belief , it's not government largesses which are the drivers, but their own self-sustaining models. Growth at the bottom of the pyramid is at unprecedented level, and the transformation is stark. The factors driving this transformation are dramatic improvements in rural roads, electrification, cell phones and water supply which are raising wages and increasing job opportunities...

-Live Mint Attempt to broad-base direct benefits transfer plan may help shore up the Congress’s standing among rural population The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government plans to include its flagship rural job guarantee programme in the second phase of its ambitious direct benefits transfer (DBT) plan, under which beneficiaries of social welfare programmes will receive money directly in their Aadhaar-linked bank accounts. The attempt to broad-base the cash transfer plan before several...

-PTI The Income Tax department has decided to crack the whip on big companies and organisations that do not remit TDS money even after deducting it from their workers' salaries. The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the controlling and administrative authority of the department, has asked all I-T ranges to identify such cases where revenue implication is large and initiate prosecution in competent courts. The action will be taken under Section 276B...