The Centre on Saturday asserted that adequate funds were available during the2012-13 financial year to meet job demands by below poverty line (BPL) households under the Mahatma Gandhi NREGS. Union Minister of Rural Development Jairam Ramesh underlined that he has recommended reallocation of funds for rural development, especially fordrinking water and sanitation projects, to ensure inclusive growth and reflect the percolation of the high growth rate to the rural side. At the...

National AIDS Control Programme urged to move beyond medicine-centric approach The government programmes for children suffering from HIV/AIDS should move from medicine-centric approach to include nutrition and preventive care, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has recommended. In its recently released report ‘Rights and entitlements of children affected and infected by HIV/AIDS 2010-11’, the organisation also advocated provisions for issuing BPL cards to children who have lost their...

-PTI About 58.8 per cent of households in Maharashtra have TV sets while 13.3 per cent have computer/laptop and 69.1 per cent have telephone/mobile in their households, as per the data on "housing, amenities and assets" in the 2011 census. The respective figures at national level are 47.2, 9.5 and 63.2 per cent, Ranjit Singh Deol, director Census operations, Maharashtra, told reporters in Mumbai. The share of households having two wheelers is 24.9...

Often, municipal corporations carry out flawed projects which go against public interest and only suit vested interests. Use of RTI can help unearth such irregularities. Here’s a startling example... The Mula-Mutha rivers in Pune resemble stinking nallahs, yet the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) had a brainwave of implementing a river navigation project on a 25-odd km stretch from Ramwadi to Kharadi, envisioning boat rides as one of the activities to save...

-The Pioneer Hitting at UPA’s biggest flagship scheme Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), Agriculture Ministry has criticised the scheme in it’s first ever Agriculture Survey saying that MGNREGA has led to double digit growth in wages annually in the last few years even exceeding the rate of inflation that prevailed during this period. The Agriculture Survey is compiled by the Agriculture Ministry as a precursor to Union Budget on...