CAG indicts Bihar for irregularities in rural job scheme implementation

Only 35 per cent beneficiaries got jobs; half of civil work undertaken left incomplete

When markets do work

A hard rain’s falling

Sayantan Bera tells the story of a man and a state, paralysed inside the remote islands of Sundarbans

Hiware Bazar - A village with 54 millionaires

Hiware Bazar, a village in Maharashtra's drought-prone Ahmednagar district, was sliding into an abyss after degrading its environment. But in …

The road ahead

Jute, coir and waste material are set to make rural roads economic and eco-friendly

Hunger games – it’s the real India show

Operation Saranda: from Maoists to Miners

Last ditch attempt

UPA gives sops under MGNREGS to attract rural voters ahead of elections

Two Andhra villages get bamboo rights

The gram panchayat can earn up to Rs 1 crore a year, says Jairam Ramesh

GDP ignores cost to the environment

Can this flawed measure of growth be reversed?

Inheritance of loss

Whatever the poverty line, 50 per cent people in India will remain poor

Who are the poor?

Planning Commission's poverty estimates do not reflect ground reality

Tricks of diminishing returns

Clever calculations and the great wall of bureaucracy

Tryst with rain

Following the monsoon failure of 1999-2000, two states - Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh - launched crash programmes to encourage water harvesting. An …

India’s mysterious diseases: ‘We need a public health system’

Human health management is dismally low in India, says T Jacob John, virologist and former professor at Christian Medical College, Vellore

Funds for social welfare cut drastically in revised budget estimates

Ministers write protest letters to prime minister and finance minister, saying it would greatly impact ongoing schemes

RTI activists’ murders: Jairam Ramesh demands prompt action, compensation to families

Rural development minister’s letter to Nitish Kumar includes four suggestions for better implementation of social welfare schemes

Who are the poor?

Identifying the poor and measuring the poverty is a contentious issue. Poverty line is not a sacred line. At best, it indicates how far the …

Poverty level will increase if health expenditure included

Planning Commission factors in less than one rupee a day as health expenditure in its affidavit to the apex court

MGNREGA funds scam in Bihar could have been prevented

Initiative to make wage payment to workers transparent was stalled by officialdom

Will land Bill cross Rajya Sabha hurdle?

Narendra Modi government accuses rival parties of opposing amendments in the land acquisition law for the sake of opposition

A new roadblock

Tribal affairs ministry objects to Maharashtra's Village Forest Rules that violate FRA. Other ministeries pressure it to backtrack

Another village, this time in Odisha, gets official permit to sell bamboo

Though Jamguda was conferred community forest right two years ago, it was not allowed to cart bamboo out or sell it in the market

Between Maoists and mines

Ho tribals lose hold of Saranda as mining is set to take over the pristine sal forest. A report and photographs by Sayantan Bera

Maoist insurgency

Land struggles and growth of India’s red corridor