Though Anna Hazare gets much of the credit for focusing the national spotlight on corruption, India was only too aware of the problem even before his agitation. According to a Pew Research poll in October 2010 (six months before Hazare emerged on the national scene), 98 per cent of Indians indicate corrupt political leaders as a “very big” or a “moderately big” problem. Hazare’s campaign did not attune Indians to...

-The Deccan Chronicle   As the year 2011 comes to an end, the ministry of rural development is yet to find answers to slippage within the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). However, Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh gave a new approach by unveiling new policies for the Naxal-affected areas. Taking charge of the ministry later in the middle of the year, Mr Ramesh highlighted that the demand for the job...

-PTI The agriculture sector performed exceedingly well in 2011, with record grain production of over 240 million tonnes giving enough leeway for the government to lift a ban on exports of wheat and non-basmati rice and introduce the food security bill in Parliament. Farmers’ long-standing demand for crop loans at a 4% rate of interest was met during the year, although with a rider that the facility would be available to...

-The Economic Times   Rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to re-consider the idea of creating a new category under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, for the rural employment scheme. He has said that the revisit can be done even as the special leave petition (SLP) process moves forward. The Centre has already decided to file a SLP in the Supreme Court against the Karnataka HC's s...

The implementation of the ‘100 days work' scheme in West Bengal had become a poll issue during the last parliamentary and assembly elections as had some other Centrally-funded rural development projects. But despite a change in government in the State, little seems to have changed on that front ultimately leading to a somewhat hurried shunting out of a Minister from his Department. The decision taken by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to...