-Contributed by the India Country Office and the Legal Vice Presidency What does a parent from one of India’s historically marginalized castes do when his child is not allowed to sit with others in class? Or, if during the mid-day meal at school, his dishes are kept separate from others? Whom does a young mother turn to when a health worker refuses to enter her house? Where does she go when...

The cash-strapped Bengal government has persuaded the Centre to conduct a fresh survey of the below poverty line (BPL) population in the state. Panchayat and Rural development minister Subrata Mukherjee had tossed up the proposal at a meeting with his central counterpart Jairam Ramesh at Budge Budge yesterday. “Poverty estimates by the Centre and the state are markedly different…. So we decided to run a check on whether the Left Front government...

-The United Nations Cooperatives and producer organizations will be increasingly important in efforts to eliminate hunger and reduce poverty, the head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said today. “FAO needs strong cooperatives and producer organizations as key partners in the effort to eliminate hunger for some 925 million people, and to respond to the many challenges that face our world today,” said Director-General José Graziano da Silva. He told...

It's no longer a job for politician; it's for expert in Rural development Union Rural development Minister Jairam Ramesh has decided to step down as president of the governing body of the CAPART (Council for Advancement of People's Action and Rural Technology) and pave the way for its professional management, besides putting an end to political misuse that has reduced the autonomous body to a storehouse of corruption. The CAPART executive committee...

The National Bank for Agriculture & Rural development, or Nabard, has started lending directly to infrastructure projects out of its own resources for the first time in 30 years, in an attempt to diversify its activities and make itself relevant at a time when the dynamics of the rural market are changing.  Essentially a refinance bank till recently, Nabard has created a Rs 1,000-crore special window for lending to build core...