Five years after launching the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, the UPA government is now shifting the focus from mere employment generation to creation of durable assets. With this focus, the Union Ministry of Rural Development has come out with the “MGNREGA works field manual”, which lays down “do’s and don’ts” for the states. The manual has been prepared by a team of experts headed by GN Sharma, who is consultant...

Footage of the fracas replayed at ANHAD meeting Old Rafiq Ansari is inconsolable, shocked and quite simply beyond words as he comes to grips with the loss of his seven-month-old grandson — a death he considers almost surreal. Baby Naushad, who died in his mother's lap when two bullets struck him last Friday, was one of the four killed in police firing on protesters. Villagers of Bhajanpur and Rampur were protesting against the...

-The Assam Tribune   Impressed with last year’s success in implementation of NREGA in Tripura, the Centre has released Rs 414.44 crore as first instalment in the current fiscal, the highest among the seven north-eastern states, reports PTI. “Tripura has been given Rs 414.44 crore as first instalment of the total outlay of Rs 1149 crore which is highest among the seven north-eastern states,” Tripura Minister for Rural Development, Jitendra Chowdhury told reporters today. Claiming...

Development has a multiplier effect in terms of employm-ent, secondary activity and revenue to state, while delay entails loss for everybody. Tolstoy’s famous question, “How much land does a man require?” was answered when the Count who had ruthlessly exploited his serfs was buried in a grave measuring 7x4x4 feet. And that, Tolstoy concluded, was all the land a man requires. Is corporate and infrastructural greed in India today destroying the small,...

What is rural and what is urban is largely an artefact of definition and relative. See the table below. Most of India's 'rural' population resides in villages that contain between 500 and 5,000 inhabitants. Some argue that in other countries, many of these villages would be classified as urban. These studies point out that if India were to be a little more liberal in its definition of urban areas (minimum...