-The Times of India RANCHI: If deposits in banks are indicative of prosperity of a region, Jharkhand villages have been blazing quite a trail over the past couple of years. The volume of money deposited with rural bank branches witnessed a whopping 34% increase over the last fiscal as against increase of mere 19% in the urban bank branches. With emphasis on financial inclusion, linking MGNREGA wages with bank accounts and...

-The Economic Times Drug companies paid as little as 50,000 as compensation to families of volunteers who died during clinical trials for new medicines last year, leading to sharp criticism about the paltry sums being handed out and growing clamour among health groups for more stringent guidelines on new drug trials.  According to government data accessed by a healthcare activist through an RTI query, Germany's Fresenius Kabi paid 50,000 each to the...

-The Hindu A day after the Union Cabinet approved the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood & Regulation of Street Vending) Bill, 2012, the National Association of Street Vendors of India organised a meeting at Jantar Mantar on Saturday and hailed the decision with the hope that Parliament would now pass the Bill in its current session. Association national coordinator Arbind Singh said, “The struggle of street vendors has yielded result. We have...

-The Business Standard The Odisha government has decided to resume the land acquisition process for South African steelmaker Posco’s project, which was stalled indefinitely in June last year following protests by villagers and Left leaders. The decision was taken in a meeting convened by Chief Secretary B K Patnaik on 16 August, where officials of the Central Revenue Division Commissioner, Posco-India, Jagatsinghpur district administration and Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation of Odisha (Idco)...

-The Asian Age Stating that many serious irregularities have come to light in the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS) in some districts of Karnataka , Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh on Sunday took the Karnataka government to task for failing to take action. Speaking to media persons after visiting family toilets built under the Parishud Grama Yojana by Infosys Foundation at Gamvar village in Jewargi...