From a gram panchayat ward member to a member of Parliament, elected representatives at different levels of the political pyramid, cutting across party lines, have resigned from their posts in coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema regions to protest the 'unilateral decision' of the Congress to bifurcate Andhra Pradesh.Ministers, both at the Central and state level, hailing from the region, haven't yet decided on their resignations, despite mounting pressure.
Maoists on Monday unleashed widespread violence claiming eight lives in West Bengal, Bihar and Orissa during their 24-hour Bharat bandh against United States President Barack Obama's India visit. While four persons fell to the bullets of Naxals in West Bengal, two each were gunned down in Bihar and Orissa.
The ministry said the country has a robust system of reporting deaths, including those caused by COVID-19, and the data is compiled regularly at different levels of governance, starting from the gram panchayat level to the district level and the state level.
Money allocated for rural India has increased, but expenditure of panchayats is not adequate and inconsistent
The modus operandi for immunising the country's 1.35 billion population in stages has been thrashed out in more than one meeting among top government officials in the health ministry and the Prime Minister's Office.
Patnaik's statement came a few hours after the anti-posco activists sealed all the six roads connecting the proposed plant site villages located in three gram panchayats under Ersama block in Jagatsinghpur district.
Alarmed at the possible ill effects commercial cultivation of Bt Brinjal could have to their traditional Brinjal crop, villagers at a gram panchayat in Kerala have launched a campaign to showcase their varieties to the world, distributing seedlings to households in the area and highlghting its 'medicinal' effects.
The three initiatives are - pro-bono legal services, tele law and Nyaya Mitra
Five persons, including a woman, were killed and over 20 injured when villagers suspecting a house was being used by armed Communist Party of India-Marxist cadre gheraoed it and were fired upon from inside in Lalgarh area of West Midnapore district on Friday.
Altogether eight teams comprising six members each entered Gobindpur gram panchayat area in Jagatsinghpur district and conducted socio-economic and forest land survey without police protection, a senior official said.
A local court in Karnataka on Wednesday extended the judicial custody of self-styled godman Nityananda Swami, arrested on criminal charges including rape, till May 26.
The chronology of major Maoist attacks in the country in the last five years
Reaching out to the youth of the Kashmir Valley, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday spelled out initiatives for peace and development, and assured they will not inherit the problems faced by their parents and grandparents.
The Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra which completes two years in power on November 27 has survived against all odds amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Sanskrit may have ceased to be spoken by people, but there is a remote village in this coastal district of Orissa where every home has a pundit of the ancient language. Sasana village in the Shyamsundar gram panchayat area is almost an anachronism in today's culture which no longer takes pride in mastering the language which, along with Latin, was once the two most dominant languages in the world.
A revenue department official said against 4,500 sand spots across the state, only 1,300 which had been cleared by the respective gram panchayats are available for auction.
A law making it compulsory to vote, a none-of-the-above feature, as well as the right to recall and neutral democracy at the grassroots can go a long way in stimulating the democratic processes, writes Mahesh Vijapurkar.
Police said miscreants torched several houses late Monday night, triggering retaliation from the affected communities, resulting in a bloody clash in which firearms were used by both the communities.
At least 12 people were killed and more than 150 others injured this evening as a tornado wrought havoc and left trails of devastation at villages in Rajkanika block of Orissa's Kendrapara district.
The Orissa state government has shifted nearly 4000 people living in coastal villages in Kendrapara district's Satabhaya gram panchayat due to their villages being engulfed by the sea.
The minister also appealed to the people of Kashmir to hoist the national flag in their homes on August 15.
In a circular to the banks, the central bank has clarified that the directions of gram panchayats and municipal councils will not apply to such houses as they neither sanction plans nor issue completion certificates for the same.
The rate of increase in coronavirus cases in Maharashtra between February 14 to March 23 was three times that recorded in the previous four months, data shows.
The bird flu virus was detected in blood samples of dead birds, from Nadilag village of Bishalgarh subdivision, at the High Security Animal Diseases Laboratory in Bhopal on Wednesday. A red alert has been sounded and import of poultry and eggs from outside the state, including neighbouring Bangladesh, has been banned. Personnel of the Border Security Force and special surveillance teams were keeping vigil in the border areas.
'The police are busy arresting people from Delhi, but not those we saw burning our home!'
The Karnataka legislative assembly on Monday passed a unanimous resolution condemning the recent defacing of Shivaji Maharaj and Sangolli Rayanna's statues and burning of Kannada flag, and said such incidents will be considered as an act of sedition and strict action will be taken against those involved under 'Goonda Act.'
The Trinamool Congress welcomed the Supreme Court verdict on panchayat polls in West Bengal as a "victory of democracy" and asked opposition parties to apologise to the people of the state.
Modi government has earlier faced criticism from the Opposition on a number of occasions for renaming the schemes including PURA launched by the UPA in past.
Making use of the time at hand, he carried out the sanitisation drive with his brother, uncle and a friend to help him out.
Soon after the incident, hundreds of villagers of nearby villages assembled and staged a dharna leading to tension in the area.
Rural budget set to increase; likely to enhance market linkages for agri commodities
The lawyer for a village panchayat in Uttar Pradesh, where actor Amitabh Bachchan was allotted a farmland, on Thursday said the panchayat would not launch criminal prosecution against the Bollywood star if he forgoes his claim over the plot.
In an unusually candid admission, the CPI-M blamed corruption and dishonesty among its leaders at the village level for the party's poor show in the recent panchayat elections across the state. "Not everybody in the CPI-M-controlled zilla parishads, panchayat samitis and gram panchayats is honest. We have corruption in our functioning. Even though they are few in number, we have to find out how this happened," CPI-M state secretary Biman Bose said.
Most of the 40 MLAs in the Shinde camp don't have enough legislative experience to conduct business in the House and so the first ministry expansion needed induction of veterans.
The innovative Rajiv Gandhi Rural Twenty20 Cricket tourney, brainchild of Rahul Gandhi, will conclude later this month, with Gandhi expected to be the chief guest at the final in Amethi. The tourney comprises 1,857 teams, just from the Amethi parliamentary constituency, participating in 1,819 matches. The winning team would get a cash prize of Rs three lakhs, while the runners up will be rich by Rs 1 lakh.
School Education Minister Vijay Shah says if successful, the proposal will be sent to make this must in all govt schools.
Pintu Pawar's dead body was found on Monday at Dhanora in Beed district, 200 km from his village, said assistant inspector Dnyneshwar Kuklare of Ambhora police station. Pawar, who worked as sugarcane cutter in cane fields, was native of Dhopte Pondul village. He was visiting his parents at his sister's house in Pune when lockdown was imposed, and got stuck there.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday called for ending "sarpanch-pati" culture in panchayats, the practice of husbands of women sarpanches exercising undue influence, as he pitched for a leadership role for elected village representatives to alleviate poverty and promote education.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday launched the 'historic' National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme aimed at providing right to legal livelihood to the rural poor.
The socio-economic and caste census 2011 painted a grim picture of rural India, indicating that one out of three families living in villages is landless and depends on manual labour for livelihood.
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