-The Times of India NEW DELHI: A recent study on the city's green cover shows a disturbing trend. Delhi's vegetation has seen an overall decline since 1986. The green cover is also increasingly becoming fragmented, the study reveals. The highest fragmentation is being seen on the periphery where afforestation work is being conducted to compensate for the loss of trees to urban Development Projects. However, it is also only on the periphery that...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Centre tonight issued an executive order to continue better compensation and rehabilitation packages for land-losers, three days before an ordinance providing the increased benefits was to expire. The Congress likened the order, covering land acquired under 13 central laws, to "rubbing salt on Parliament". A government statement said Section 113 of the UPA-crafted Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, was...

-Business Standard The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) helped lower poverty by  32 per cent between 2004-05 and 2011-12, lifting almost 14 million in this regard, says a recent survey by the National Council for Applied Economic Research and the University of Maryland. The study involved 26,000 households and used data from the two rounds of the India Human Development Survey, 2004-5 and 2011-12. In this period, though overall economic...

Although MGNREGA has been looked upon with suspicion by the Government, industry as well as the landed farming class for various reasons including inefficiency, leakages, corruption, rise in rural wages, cost escalation etc., a new report reveals that the programme reduced poverty among its participants between 2004-05 and 2011-12 by providing employment. The report entitled Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act: A Catalyst for Rural Transformation has estimated that...

-Firstpost.com New Delhi: A large section of farmers and agricultural labourers from various states across the country didn’t want to lose the opportunity of the ongoing monsoon session of the Parliament, to make their voices heard to the lawmakers of this nation. Amid sloganeering —“Ladenge, Jeetenge… Jai Kisan, Jai Kisan” (We’ll fight, we’ll win… Hail farmers!) — at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on Monday, hundreds of farmers and leaders of various...