Maintaining his pro-Adivasi approach, Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh on Monday said the time had come to make changes in the country's economic policy keeping the interests of the Adivasi population in view. “Though the country has achieved enough economic progress, the benefit of our economic policy has not reached the Adivasi people so far. The injustice done to the Adivasis needs to be corrected with concern and care,” Mr....

Eminent journalist Dileep Padgaonkar who headed the group of three Central interlocutors for Jammu and Kashmir said on Thursday that the thrust of their report was to empower the people of Jammu and Kashmir so that they were able to exercise their civil and political rights in full measure. The 176-page report of the group of Central interlocutors was uploaded on the website of Union Home Ministry on Thursday, seven months...

-The Telegraph Several states today proposed user charges on rural households for the piped water provided to them but Bengal avoided taking a stand. The Centre supported the idea, proposed by states such as Gujarat, Odisha, Jammu and Kashmir, Bihar and Haryana at a conference of ministers for water supply and sanitation. Most urban households in the country now pay water charges but water has always been a free commodity in the villages....

-The Indian Express The government on Tuesday informed the Lok Sabha about the expansion of the scope of activities permitted under the rural job guarantee scheme by including 30 new activities. These will supplement agricultural and animal husbandry operations along with flood management and sanitation-related works in rural India. According to the copy of the government notification put before the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, the government has amended Schedule-I and Schedule-II of...

-The Hindu The Centre on Tuesday unveiled the expanded version of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, allowing over 30 new permissible works, as productivity-enhancing activity. The gram panchayats alone have been empowered to decide on the priority of work to be taken up. Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh, who tabled in Parliament a copy of the new notification, and Planning Commission member Mihir Shah told reporters that...