-Deccan Chronicle ONGOLE: After fluoride, it has been found that ground water in 46 villages under Peddacherlapallil, Chandrasekhara PURAm and Chimakurthy mandals in Prakasam district contains uranium. This was revealed in a chemical analysis test conducted by the rural water supply department at a testing lab in Hyderabad. Groundwater in DiwakaraPURAm village under P.C. Palli mandal contains the highest traces of uranium, 48.863 parts per billion (ppb), and in Hariramarajapalem Colony it is...

-Economic and Political Weekly   The emphasis on use of digital technologies to bridge the "rural-urban gap" in the union budget is limited to high talk and minimal allocations. The need for a more comprehensive and peoples' participation-oriented rural action plan should have been the focus while setting sectoral allocations, but that is not to be in this mid-year budget. Vipul Mudgal (vipulmudgal@gmail.com) heads the Inclusive Media for Change project at the Centre...

-The Tribune The UPA's flagship programme MGNREGS changed the employment scene for the rural poor. While 100-day job guarantee was a novel step, loopholes and poor implementation rendered it a liability. The Modi govt hopes to gradually reinvent the scheme, if not entirely scrap it. Midway through the Congress-led UPA's second tenure - believed to be largely the courtesy of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) -...

-The Deccan Chronicle Kollam (Kerala): KulasekharaPURAm, a small panchayat on the border of Kollam district is all set to implement the United Nation's call to observe 2014 as International Family Farming Year, raising the slogan of self-sustainability in food production. The panchayat has two villages, Adinad and K.S. PURAm and as many as 12,230 families in 23 wards. The agricultural office of the panchayat had identified the fact that extensive cultivation alone...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Stuck on a waterlogged road, many of you would blame the monsoon for your misery. This report should dispel that notion. In its audit of Delhi's drainage, desilting and flood control measures, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India has unearthed systematic fraud and neglect, showing how taxpayers' money is virtually going down the drain. The report, which could be tabled in Parliament soon, reveals a...