-IPS News NAYAGARH (IPS): Kama Pradhan, a 35-year-old tribal woman, her eyes intent on the glowing screen of a hand-held GPS device, moves quickly between the trees. Ahead of her, a group of men hastens to clear away the brambles from stone pillars that stand at scattered intervals throughout this dense forest in the Nayagarh district of India’s eastern Odisha state. The heavy stone markers, laid down by the British 150 years...
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Himachal: 100-workday condition relaxed for roadside plantation under NREGA -Saurabh Chauhan
-Hindustan Times Shimla: After the Union government’s nod, maximum 100-workday condition under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) has been relaxed for roadside tree plantation activities in Himachal Pradesh. Under the NREGA, 100 days employment guarantee is ensured across the country. However, the Centre approved the state’s proposal to induct the roadside plantation activity under the NREGA and to remove the condition of 100 days. Now, not only tree plantation but protection...
More »If you want to help the farmer -Vani S Kulkarni, Katsushi S Imai and Raghav Gaiha
-The Indian Express As the toll of human misery and suicide mounts, official estimates of farm losses due to unseasonal rains and hailstorms in March remain controversial, with hasty downward revision. Since these estimates are largely notional, without validation from field visits, such revision smacks of deliberate fiddling. On March 24, the agriculture ministry reported that crops on 18 million hectares — about 30 per cent of the rabi crops —...
More »Decline in number of workdays under MGNREGA: Government
-PTI NEW DELHI: The number of workdays being provided under the rural job flagship scheme MGNREGA has registered a decline, Lok Sabha was informed today. Minister of State for Rural Development Sudarshan Bhagat, in a written reply to Lok Sabha, said "there has been a decline in the number of persondays created in 2014-15." "MGNREGA is a demand driven programme and the demand for work itself is influenced by various factors such as...
More »Inside the world of sand mafia: Terror casts gloom as cops bury heads -Rajesh Kumar Singh
-Hindustan Times Hamirpur/ Jalaun/ Banda: The dangerous sand mafia stops at nothing. It kills, runs over men in uniform, kidnaps and, in Uttar Pradesh, even molests and rapes. Its impunity stems from the fact, as an HT investigation found, that complaints lodged with police often remain confined to files. Shivpal Singh, gram pradhan of Bansariya village, testifies to the mafia’s dominance. “In March 2014, the musclemen of a kingpin sexually assaulted two women...
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