The Union budget estimates the nominal rate of growth for the Indian economy to be 12.5 per cent during the current fiscal. While it is impossible to figure out the manner in which this number was arrived at, the government has predicted further that the inflation-adjusted real growth rate for the same year will be eight per cent. Simple arithmetic requires that the difference between the nominal and real growth...

The power of the Gram Panchayats of sanctioning works under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) has been curtailed down to Rs 1 lakh from Rs 10 lakh, said Zilla Panchayat Chief Executive Officer P Shivashankar. Addressing the District Vigilance and Monitoring Committee meeting on Wednesday at ZP hall, he said that the step has been taken up by the Government following several complaints of misuse of funds under...

PATNAGARH: For generations they have been weaving magic, from bamboo. But, traditional bamboo workers are now close to breaking and the onslaught of substitute materials and government policies since past some decades have driven bamboo weavers to poverty and starvation. The bamboo artisans of Kolpada in Khaprakhol block under Balangir district are leading a life of penury. Inhabited by primitive Kol tribe, by virtue of which the village gets its name,...

The National Advisory Council (NAC), headed by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, will consider ways to boost Indian agriculture as part of its drive to review the draft food security bill on July 1. “The NAC will address the sorry state of Indian agriculture, which recorded negative (-2 per cent) growth in 2010, and try to find ways to boost it in the long term,” said an NAC member. “The idea is...

Chanchala Devi always wanted a house. Not a mud-and-stick hut, like her current home in this desolate village in the mineral-rich, corruption-corroded state of Jharkhand, but a proper brick-and-mortar house. When she heard that a government program for the poor would give her about $700 to build that house, she applied immediately. As an impoverished day labourer from a downtrodden caste, she was an ideal candidate for the grant. Yet she...