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If doing business in India is a problem for even the richest, most educated scion of a business house, it is unlikely to be a breeze for the average rural Indian woman.
Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has said states would not be allowed to ignore the findings of the social audits notified recently by his ministry on the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS).
Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Minister Jagadish Shettar on Monday urged the Bharatiya Janata Party central leadership to induct controversial Reddy brothers into Chief Minister D V Sadananda Gowda's ministry.
The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, the apex financial institution for rural finance, will raise Rs 5,000 crore (Rs 50 billion) through capital gains bonds in financial year 2007-08.
It was business as usual for Jairam Ramesh in his new rural development ministry where he held extensive meetings with officials on his first day that stretched past midnight.
"It may be a wild thought now. But the first Green Revolution came about as a result of very high water guzzling cropping systems from the irrigated regions of the country. But the NREGA holds the trigger for a second Green Revolution from the rain-fed areas, but using water conserving technologies and working with the smaller and poorer farmers while the first revolution came from the big farmers," Dr. Sharma said.
The government is considering enacting a law making it mandatory for industries to rehabilitate the displaced people before developing projects under the special economic zones.
The government is considering a proposal to expand the types of works under National Rural Employment Guarantee Act to provide wider option to beneficiaries.
A contractor who had accused the Karnataka Rural Development and Panchayat Raj (RDPR) Minister K S Eshwarappa of demanding 40 per cent commission for a contract, was found dead in a lodge in the coastal town of Udupi on Tuesday morning.
The UP government is also planning to free up its own land from illegal encroachment to set up these new cow- shelters in "safe locations" and with full facility for fodder and water.
The Union government is on a social sector roll. Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee had indicated that the United Progressive Alliance government was going to make the social sector the centrepiece of the upcoming Budget. According to Dilip Ghosh, special secretary, Panchayat Raj department of West Bengal, the Centre has indicated that the demand for grants for these projects should be hiked at least 50 per cent more than the present allocation.
In a draft proposal, the ministry of rural development has also sought to engage non-government organisations in the ambitious programme by designating them as Lok Sewaks, who would in turn appoint and guide Lok Karmis in their territorial jurisdiction, which would not be more than four blocks in a district.
Extending the job guarantee programme much beyond digging ponds and building roads, work allotted under NREGA may cover garmenting giving employment to lakhs of people, Textile Secretary Rita Menon has said.
Each 'adarsh village' should have piped drinking water, connectivity to the main road, electricity supply to all households, library, telecom and broadband connectivity including CCTVs in public areas. Emphasis will also be on e-governance, says Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com.
Ministry of rural development has asked chief secretaries of the states to inform about the remedial measures taken by them to ensure timely payment of wages to NREGA workers, an official said.
In its report to the rural development ministry, the NLM has also noted that 60 per cent of the districts have 'unsatisfactory or irrelevant' choice of works under the Act and its technical supervision was also absent.
Elections are not won or lost by expounding on such macro-economic matters. For the aam admi, what matters in manifestos are promises that will improve their quality of life, notes Vinayak Chatterjee.
The finance ministry has called a meeting of the State-Level Bankers Committee in New Delhi on Tuesday, which will be attended by officials from scheduled commercial banks, regional rural banks, cooperatives, Reserve Bank of India, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, the Centre as well as states. The meeting will be presided over by financial services department secretary Arun Ramanathan.
Members protest, rural ministry assures it will not be so hereafter.
The Central Bureau of Investigation has named 10 non-government organisations, including the US-based Omidyar, as accused in the case of allegedly conspiring to illegally facilitate the registration and renewal of Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act licences.
While the rural development ministry claims high success rate in the previous two years under its flagship Swarnajayati Gram Swarozgar Yojana, a total of 3,24,526 eligible self-help groups are still awaiting financial assistance under the programme.
Almost a year after he was forced to resign in the aftermath of the terror attack on Mumbai, senior Nationalist Congress Party leader R R Patil is back in the saddle as Maharashtra home minister. NCP chief Sharad Pawar's nephew Ajit Pawar will handle the prestigious Power portfolio, in addition to the Water Resources Ministry he handled earlier. NCP leader Jayant Patil, who was home minister in the outgoing government, will now handle the Rural Development Ministry.
C P Joshi, India's Rural Development Minister, on Tuesday claimed that a Bill to provide for acquisition of land for industrial projects and Special Economic Zones (SEZs) has been cleared by the Cabinet and the timing of its introduction in Parliament will be decided by the Parliamentary Affairs Ministry.
Norms flouted, non-BPL families cornered grants, say rural development ministry's reports.
Stepping up pressure over their demand for change in the leadership in Karnataka, seven Ministers on Friday met former Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa and discussed the political situation amid reports that they planned to quit the Bharatiya Janata Party ministry.
S S Meenakshisundram on Wednesday took charge as secretary in the ministry of divestment.\n\n
The controversial Land Acquisition Bill was on Thursday cleared by the Union Cabinet, making mandatory the consent of 80 per cent of people whose land is taken for private projects.
After UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi had intervened and asked government to take consent from 80 per cent land owner for purchase of land.
government approved on Thursday expansion of community radio stations by non-profit organisations after ensuring security clearances from the defence and home ministries.
Centre is to allocate Rs 1,000 crore for Tamil Nadu from the Pradhan Mantri Gramin Sadak Yojana to lay roads in interiors of more than 1,000 kms connecting villages to main towns.
A day after India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Cabinet of 45 ministers, the analysis has begun. Of the 44 ministers examined, a report by the Association for Democratic Reforms reveals that 13 of Modi's men have criminal charges registered against them.
First Rajya Sabha approved the Rs 45 lakh-crore spending proposed in the Budget, followed by the nod to the Finance Bill that contains tax proposals.
The state governments will be allowed to acquire a maximum of 10 per cent of the total land area allotted for a special economic zone for purposes of contiguity, according to a top source in the rural development ministry.
About 150 years ago, in British India, big farmers in the western region of Maharashtra agitated over unfair lending practices and demanded a more fair and inclusive financing structure. People say this is where the seeds of the cooperative movement, now omnipresent in the country, were sown. Today, more than 800,000 cooperative societies thrive in India, with 300 million members, a number close to the population of the United States. Despite a reach this deep--grass roots as they call it--cooperatives do not occupy a lion's share in the Indian economy.
