-The Times of India   Amid complaints from opposition Congress about corruption in Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS) and other schemes, Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh will tour four districts of Madhya Pradesh to review implementation the centrally sponsored schemes.  Ramesh is expected to tour Sagar, Jabalpur, Mandla and Bhopal districts to review theMNREGS and implementation of other rural development schemes, particularly in the light of complaints of...

-The Times of India   Bapi Sarkhel, in the eye of a storm since the December 14 violence near Poscoproject site in Jagatsinghpur, said on Thursday certain politicians seeking his arrest had benefited from him in the past, but turned against him as they saw him as a threat. Police has booked him on charges of fomenting trouble in the proposed Posco steel plant site and attacking anti-land acquisition villagers in the...

Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh has rejected Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar’s suggestion on modifying MGNREGA’s guidelines, saying it has not impacted the availability of workers for the farm sector. Ramesh has told Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that on the contrary it has led to major increase in farm wages and kind of works being executed with most of the works being taken up during the off-season periods. In reply to Pawar’s...

Fixing of minimum wages in the States and under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme is set to become a poll issue, at least in Uttar Pradesh. Even as the Ministry of Rural Development is hurrying to revise the wage rate under the MGNREGS next week, its officials are apprehensive that Uttar Pradesh too might revise its minimum farm wages in a couple of days. The officials are keenly watching...

The recent Cabinet nod to the National Food Security Bill triggered a flurry of criticism in the mainstream media, focusing mainly on the financial implications. The cost of the Bill obviously needs careful scrutiny and public debate, but it’s a little sad to see so much concern with the cost, and so little interest in what the Bill can do to improve people’s lives. The barrage of attacks was predictable —...