The post office in Bihar's Siwan district HQ remained the richest post office for the third consecutive year, receiving the highest number of 35,600 international money orders via western union between April 1, 2010 and March 31, 2011. Gopalganj was a poor second, receiving 24,800 international money orders while Motihari with 21,000 and Darbhanga with 20,000 international money orders via western union remained at the third and fourth positions respectively. Patna...

With manufacturing sector growth in the Eleventh Plan period estimated at 8 per cent against 11-12 per cent required to create about 2 million additional jobs in the country, the Prime Minister’s National Council on Skill Development (NCSD) is considering recommending to the Rural Development Ministry that the UPA’s flagship rural job guarantee scheme (NREGS) be widened to include providing “skill development” to unskilled wage seekers. The issue is likely to...

Three pronouncements made on three consecutive days this month by the Supreme Court of India have brought relief to different groups of economically and socially deprived people. The beneficiaries include children sold out by poor parents to work in circuses as child labour; young men and women determined to get married crossing caste barriers and harassed for that very reason by ‘khap panchayats'; and the hungry poor across the country...

The Union Agriculture Ministry has nominated scientists belonging to the ICAR and state agricultural universities as resource-persons in 70 districts of eastern India in an attempt to give a fillip to the Centre's ambitious programme of extending the benefits of green revolution to the region. With paddy and rice production in Punjab and Haryana showing signs of plateauing, the government has been forced to turn its gaze towards the eastern states...

Government undecided on criteria to identify families below poverty line A survey by the Indian government in 2002 to determine households below poverty line (BPL) left out many poor families. Nearly a decade later, the Union Ministry of Rural Development (MORD) is trying to set the wrong right. But it is unable to decide on the criteria for identifying poor households. As a consequence, the BPL survey that was to...