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.
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.
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 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.
'The government should come back as a job creator as it did in the 1960s and the 1970s.'
Members protest, rural ministry assures it will not be so hereafter.
Coal Secretary Anil Swarup has been appointed as school education secretary.
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.
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.
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.
Norms flouted, non-BPL families cornered grants, say rural development ministry's reports.
The NDA government has asked states to enrol all MNREGA workers under the three newly-launched social security schemes.
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
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.
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.
The MHA order says the cancelled NGOs did not submit to the ministry details of amount of foreign contribution they received
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.
'I have been dropped all of a sudden and I don't even know what my fault is,' says Shobha Karandlaje, who was dropped from the Karnataka cabinet following the battle between Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa and the Reddy brothers from Bellary.
The high-level expert group led by former Reserve Bank of India governor C Rangarajan to formulate a jobs plan for Jammu and Kashmir is likely to meet on Friday in New Delhi. The committee was formed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as part of the Centre's efforts to end the ongoing cycle of violence there. The committee will initially hold a few meetings with senior officials from various ministries including home, agriculture, external affairs.
The caste and Below Poverty Line census has been suspended in the poll-bound Uttar Pradesh by Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh, though it goes on nonstop in Punjab, Goa, Uttarakhand and Manipur also have simultaneous elections.
Data captured in central government records have a lag.
As indicated by Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, the UPA government has already initiated process to make higher allocation in social sector.
The Planning Commission has in principle agreed to discontinue seven Centrally Sponsored Schemes out of 80 such schemes recommended by the finance ministry, but has ruled out scrapping other schemes as they pertain to healthcare, education and rural
Union Minister Nitin Gadkari was on Wednesday given the additional charge of portfolios held by Gopinath Munde who died in a road accident in New Delhi.
The government is undecided on the criteria to be used to identify families living below poverty line in India.
B C Khanduri, who was elevated to Cabinet rank in the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, and Rajiv Pratap Rudy, who was given independent charge of the civil aviation ministry, were among those who joined work on Monday.
Maharashtra Speaker Rahul Narvekar will likely disqualify the 16 Shiv Sena MLAs, including Eknath Shinde, who will then be asked to resign as chief minister. 'Once this is done, Ajit dada will be sworn in chief minister.'
'Similarly, he is against Dalits forgetting that the only way to get rid of poverty is to empower poor people.'
The Kolkata-based firm already has a presence in 22 states with over 2,000 branches and 5.9 million borrowers.
The exercise is aimed at ascertaining whether they promoted demonetisation and other initiatives.
The PM is keen to fill 40 per cent of joint secretary level openings with outsiders.
The government is preparing a national hydrogen road map and will launch a national mission on bio-diesel next month as part of efforts to encourage use of alternate fuels, the Lok Sabha was informed on Tuesday.
For the past one week, Modi has been holding in-person meetings with Union ministers apparently to take stock of the work done by the government in the last two years and to discuss various issues.
The ministry asked the state governments to ensure that the job cards had the unique identity number, photographs of the registered members, postal account number or bank account number, elector's photo identity card number, signature or thumb impression of the applicant, seal and signature of the registering authority and signature of the officer.
