Estimates show more than half of the country's rural population still defecates in the open, along roadsides, railway tracks and fields.
Rahul Gandhi, along with a dozen Congress leaders, had met the prime minister on Wednesday to demand that the scheme, which guarantees 100 days employment to each rural household, be extended to the entire country.
The minister said for eligible persons belonging to the violence-hit families seeking self-employment, the government would facilitate loans through banks.
The recent draft report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) which pointed to misuse and non-utilisation of funds for the National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) scheme doesn't mean the programme is a write-off. The audit will act as a deterrent and spur state governments to work more efficiently, Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh has said.
Gadkari said we have taken note of issues raised by states and will prepare a report which will be submitted to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in ten days.
Congress will fight against Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and not BJP in the next Lok Sabha elections as the Sangh is now in control of the saffron party, Union Minister Jairam Ramesh said on Sunday.
rural development minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh said on Tuesday a model Village Resource Centre would be opened within three months in any backward area of the country to provide essential agro-based information to farmers via satellite.
The bill seeking to guarantee employment in rural areas -- a promise made in the Common Minimum Programme of the United Progressive Alliance government -- is likely to be taken up for consideration in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.
National Rural Employment Guarantee Bill moved in Lok Sabha
Ekka told Press Trust of India over phone that he was apparently the target of the extremists.
West Bengal is yet to implement the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, the law that replaced the Land Acquisition Act of 1894, on January 1 this year.
The Congress president has written to party chief ministers, asking them to file a review petition against an SC order regarding mass-scale evictions of tribals and other forest-dwellers.
Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram is Congress nominee from Maharashtra for the biennial elections to Rajya Sabha while senior leaders Kapil Sibal and Jairam Ramesh have been named from Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka respectively.
The second phase of polling began Saturday morning on 20 constituencies in Jharkhand, which votes in five phases to elect 81 members of the legislative assembly.
"I have been given BJP ticket from Mandi and the party has informed me about this," he said.
The Centre has convened a meeting of Secretaries of Rural Development of 13 states where progress in the implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana has been slow, the Lok Sabha was informed on Thursday.
He was speaking on the sidelines of a function to inaugurate the new building to house the Environment Ministry.
Need for consent of affected families and social-impact assessment could go.
The cabinet on Friday discussed the fuel price increase in the context of the surge in international oil prices.
PWD minister Satyendra Jain has deployed around 100 trucks with 10 workers each to clean up the city.
Shiv Sena, the oldest ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party, is unhappy over being given only one ministerial berth and that too heavy industries portfolio in the Narendra Modi government and has complained to the Bharatiya Janata Party leadership.
The Land Acquisition Bill, passed by Parliament during the Monsoon Session to replace a 119-year-old legislation, became a law with President Pranab Mukherjee giving assent to it on.
In a scathing attack on Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, Congress leader and Union Minister Jairam Ramesh on Friday accused him of being "masterly inactive" over Muzaffarnagar riots and adopting a "cynical strategy" of believing that it would divide voters.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday lamented that a section of people start "chanting" 'Jungle Raj' after every incident of crime in the state and said the government has decided to set up a battalion for safeguarding banks and other such establishments.
The poverty ratio in rural areas dropped to nearly half between 1983 and 1999-2000. The proportion of the rural population living below poverty line, estimated at 45.65%, has come down to 27.1% in the terminal year of last century.
The decision came on a day when Thackeray said Maharashtra government should stop water supply to the beer manufacturing units in the drought-hit Marathwada region to tackle acute shortage of drinking water.
Congress party will hold a protest rally called Zameen Wapsi Andolan in New Delhi on Wednesday.
Telugu Desam Party MP Venugopal Reddy, who was involved in a fracas over Telangana bill in the Lok Sabha today, termed as a "lie" the allegation that he was carrying a knife inside the House and claimed that he was assulated by 10 members.
Away from limelight, Jeevika Didis are silently fighting the coronavirus in rural Bihar.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the actual spending under the scheme in the fiscal year ending March 31 "would be highest".
The new Land Acquisition Act, which he hoped to notify by January 1, 2014, does not have under its purview 13 different acts, which dealt with land acquisition for various government projects, including the national highways, power transmission and railways.
Twelve Trinamool Congress leaders including Mukul Roy and Madan Mitra have been booked by the Central Bureau of Investigation for alleged criminal conspiracy and corruption in the Narada sting case wherein they were purportedly filmed while taking money.
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