Anti-Posco agitators on Sunday burnt copies of the new rehabilitation package issued by the company and accused Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik of backtracking from his "promise" to visit the site for taking stock of the situation. Terming the package as meaningless, leaders of Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS) and others agitators said the residents of three gram panchayat in Jagatsinghpur district would "never allow" the mega steel plant to come up...

Seeking to build on the strengths of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) while, at the same time, eliminating its main deficiencies and shortcomings, the rural development ministry is planning to take UPA government’s flagship project to a new level. A three-day-long workshop of the coordination group attached to the ministry, as also other principal stakeholders, gets underway at the Hyderabad-based National Institute of Rural Development from...

Earlier this week, India's opposition parties came together in a rare show of unity to take to the streets in cities across the country. They protested against the government's recent decision to raise fuel prices after it scrapped its subsidy of petrol prices in an effort to cut the budget deficit. Supporters of the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party joined hands with their ideological rivals among the Communists to paralyse normal life in...

A RESEARCHER WORKING on the State of Panchayats Report (SOPR) 2008-09 met Mahangu Madiya in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar district, a dangerous place for gathering data. Madiya’s story was startling. In January, he was given Rs 55 lakh compensation for his land, but the amount is sitting in his bank account. He does not even own a mobile phone. “I am concerned with farming. My land is important to me. What will I...

The planned National Food Security Act represents a unique opportunity to achieve gains with respect to the public distribution system. However, the current draft is a non-starter. When I first visited Surguja district in Chhattisgarh nearly 10 years ago, it was one of those areas where the Public Distribution System (PDS) was virtually non-functional. I felt constrained to write, at that time, that “the whole system looks like it has been...