With Assembly elections just about a year away, the Mayawati government seems to have realised the importance of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. On Thursday, hundreds of government officers fanned out in around 30 districts of the state for holding special camps to issue jobs card to the poor who have been left out in the past. The holding of camps is part of the campaign which was launched on...
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Kind to cash by Richard Mahapatra
The government has a plan to reach welfare to the poor without wasting money. It wants to put hard cash in their hands instead of spending on welfare programmes. To begin with, it wants to end the public distribution system of food grain and give money directly to the people. Its logic: the new system of cash transfer will plug leakages and save an enormous amount of money. But is it...
More »Steep drop in representation for OBCs, minorities in panchayats by Rishikesh Bahadur Desai
MLC plans to approach Karnataka High Court seeking annulment of ZP, TP polls The State Government's Ordinance limiting political reservation in panchayat bodies to 50 per cent has not only reduced seats for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) but has also decreased the number of minority members in the rural local bodies. A study of the zilla and taluk Panchayat Election results available on the State Election Commission's website, www.karsec.gov.in, reveals that OBC...
More »If villagers won't go to town, town will come to villagers by Aman Sethi
Chhattisgarh tribals punished for exercising rights under Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act It was unconstitutional, violation of PESA, says petition It was pushed by local administration, politicians to set up thermal power plant One morning in March 2010, residents of Premnagar awoke to discover they were villagers no more. An administrative notification had dissolved Premnagar's village council or gram panchayat and replaced it with a city council or nagar panchayat. Unbeknownst to...
More »Women card on CPM table by Biswajit Roy
The CPM is planning to field a large number of women candidates in the forthcoming Assembly polls in Bengal in an attempt to fight anti-incumbency and stem the steady slide over the past few years. “We have asked all the Left Front constituents to ensure nomination of women candidates in a large number,’’ CPM Bengal secretary and Left Front chairman Biman Bose said after a coalition meeting this morning. Indicating that the...
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