So far, the drones that were considered important for the agriculture sector were nature-made winged-insects - a key component of the bee-based natural pollination cycle. The new-age drone is a whirring machine with rotors that can help farmers plan and grow and manage their crops. For the farm sector in India, which has had low levels of mechanisation, the impact of drones can be tremendous. The use of drones can help it leapfrog to modernisation in the same way that mobile phones helped India overcome its traditional lack of connectivity.
Around 40 per cent of the country is staring at drought-like conditions ahead of the monsoon as water levels have receded sharply.
'If because of El Nino, the monsoon is affected adversely in the current year, naturally it will affect income projections and consequently Budget numbers.'
Since the first Aadhaar number was issued in September 2010, more than 1.33 billion Aadhaar cards have been generated till June 2022. With the Aadhaar enrolment of adult Indians nearing 100 per cent, the main objective of the Unique Identity Authority of India (UIDAI), which was to give Unique Identification numbers (UID) to all residents of India, is almost achieved, said a senior government official. "Enrolment will now be much more update-based, because people keep updating their mobile numbers and addresses.
A total of 22.05 crore applications were received during the period.
Five days after the induction of 18 ministers into his cabinet, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Sunday allocated portfolios, keeping Urban Development and 11 other ministries with himself, while giving the crucial Home Department to Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis.
The rural development ministry has asked NGO's to run the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in in Naxal-hit areas.
Blame the voter, who invariably chooses the promise of hand-outs today in preference to a vague promise of, say, better schools tomorrow. Getting the Supreme Court to issue an edict, or Parliament to pass a law, is no solution, observes T N Ninan.
The Bihar government has sacked 110 officials of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme from service for corruption.
CEOs point fingers at rural job guarantee and related govt welfare schemes; say mechanisation an increasingly viable option.
NREGS has no place in the scheme of things that Kejriwal prescribes for the nation in his book Swaraj.
Former Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa on Sunday urged his successor D V Sadananda Gowda to immediately release Rs 200 crore for providing employment to people in drought-hit areas under National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.
The pilot project would begin from South 24 Parganas district and be gradually extended to all other 18 districts of the state, Panchayat and Rural development minister Subrata Mukherjee said.
Ramesh opposes Pawar's plan to provide cheap labour to farmers under NREGS.
State governments yet to act on sorting MGNREGA wage delays
New Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh has, however, taken up the challenge on how to synchronise the employment guarantee programme with the ground realities.
NGOs have acquired a certain critical mass and are increasingly becoming powerful voices in public discourse.
The job guarantee scheme is set to provide food grain as part of wages.
China has sought information on India's poverty reduction programmes, including the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, to beef up its own strategy.
The government has revised the wages for unskilled manual workers under the national rural employment guarantee scheme by indexing it to inflation, Rural Development Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh said.
The scheme guarantees 100 days work per household in a year and had been providing a major chunk by June each year.
US hopes to learn from these innovative and dynamic programmes in India.
Although India is a labour-surplus economy with an unlimited number of workers willing to work at a subsistence wage a paradoxical feature of the labour market is the rising incidence of scarcity or shortages amid a situation of potential plenty.
At least 22 Uttar Pradesh government officials have been suspended for their alleged bungling of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) funds.
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).
Under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, a worker is entitled to Rs 100 per day for minimum of 100 days in a year.
This step has been taken by the DM after all his efforts to spur the staff failed and the district continued to be placed among the least performing districts of the state in implementation of the scheme, the ADM added.
The project titled 'Thanal' launched by Edavaka Gram Panchayat with MGNREGS help, has provided less strenuous jobs for 600 senior citizens, including 250 tribals and 10 physically challenged in 15 nursery units, Panchayat President, Justine Baby has said.
The Tamil Nadu development formula makes programmes like the NREGS work through simple but top-down solutions.
An activist working for the implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme was killed after being mercilessly beaten by a group of 12 Maoists at Jerua village in Latehar district of Jharkhand.
Under the plan being worked out, the labour component of the railway projects, which include the expansion of train lines or conversion of line gauge, would be funded from NREGS, as most of these projects require a large labour force and generate employment opportunities in rural areas.
Government managers are asking for a 60 per cent rise in allocation for the scheme in the next financial year. Rs 20,854 crore (Rs 208.54 billion) had been spent on the scheme until December 2010. Rs 64,000 crore (Rs 640 billion) has been sought for the coming financial year.
The government's bill for funding the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) has risen steeply, due to its decision to revise wage rates under these projects and to link these to the inflation rate.
The forthcoming Budget is likely to make a provision of Rs 64,000 crore (Rs 640 billion) for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in 2011-12, against Rs 40,100 crore (Rs 401 billion) in the current fiscal.
"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.
Since jobs will remain scarce for the foreseeable future, an unemployment allowance should be the next big social-security initiative, suggests T N Ninan.
Top officials from the US department of labour, organisers of the event, said the innovative 100-day rural employment guarantee scheme has been successful beyond the expectations of almost every one.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Friday said the rural spending would not be affected by the drought situation caused by delayed monsoon, but was likely to improve due to the government's flagship NREGS. He said there would be some revival in the third and fourth quarters though the overall growth would be moderate, with the current year recording a growth rate of 6 per cent.
The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) was launched by the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in the first flush of its commitment to the 'Aam Aadmi' agenda.
Jharkhand mining secretary Pooja Singhal, earlier arrested and remanded to the custody of the ED in a suspected money laundering case, was suspended by the Jharkhand government on Thursday, an official said.
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