Women-led and women’s rights organizations are on the frontlines of today’s humanitarian crises—but many are at risk of disappearing. As global needs rise due to conflict, climate change, and displacement, deep cuts to foreign aid are threatening organizations that provide life-saving services for women and girls. In March 2025, UN …
50 more districts in the ambit After months of squabbling among the Union ministry of rural development (MoRD), the Union ministry of finance (MoF) and the Planning Commission, the Centre has agreed to extend the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) to another 50 districts. Currently, NREGA is in operation …
The Union budget 2007-08 will very likely slash development funds for the most backward regions of India by more than 48 per cent, say sources at the Union ministry of Panchayati Raj. Government is expected to further slash budgetary support to development schemes to adhere to the Fiscal Responsibility and …
in may 2004, India had a new government at the Centre. Bangalore and Hyderabad, the two boroughs of shining India, saw their chief ministers eat humble pie at the hustings. An India not very often visible
THE centre's commitment to targets stipulated by the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act, 2003, threatens to set it on a collision course with states. The matter at hand is funding social sector projects. Going by discussions on preparation of the Union budget 2007-2008, the centre seems to have made …
For mani shankar aiyar, Union minister of Panchayati Raj, the biggest obstacle with decentralisation is not a lack of political will but not getting the design right. Excerpts from an interview to richard mahapatra and sandip das On being India's first minister of Panchayati Raj Being the first minister of …
There is a great push to make panchayats the fulcrum of rural development in India. But 16 years after the third tier of government was created, it has not got its due. RAMESH Singh Yadav is much sought after. Especially among creditors and moneylenders, to whom he owes a total …
THE National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (nrega) promised to provide livelihoods in villages by providing a minimum of 100 days of employment to every household. It was envisaged that this would be done by initiating projects that would ensure long-term security by creating productive assets. That's not exactly how things …
THE year 2006 will go down as environment's watershed year. This is not because this year we have had extraordinary success in environmental management; there was also no environmental disaster per se. This year must be remembered because the task of environmental management has come to be even more contested …
Access to food involves entitlements for producing or acquiring food, which are discussed in this paper under three main headings: access to productive natural resources including land, water, agroforestry, biodiversity, seeds and other genetic resources, and environmental services; access to diverse types of knowledge, including traditional and indigenous knowledge, current …
The Union government is about to substantially cut down the number of poverty alleviation programmes it runs. Known as the centrally-sponsored schemes (csss), these projects have long been criticised for being out-of-sync with local governments. So, a high powered committee constituted by the Planning Commission has recommended that panchayati raj …
vishwa is a plumber. He likes to go about his job in a no-nonsense manner. Mending pipes, fixing toilets, urinals, drains, hosepipes and sundry other valves and fittings does not quite encourage one to have cerebral pretensions. But Vishwa's stock has gone up amongst his friends of late. The president …
the centre has curtailed foodgrain supply to one of its flagship rural development programmes, the Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana (sgry) which threatenin food security of the rural poor. The Union ministry of rural development (mord) recently informed the states of its inability to provide enough grain for sgry, and has …
ON SEPTEMBER 12, 2006 the Madhya Pradesh High Court issued notices to the Union and state governments on the removal of 21,00,000 families from the below poverty line (bpl) list. The order came in response to a public interest litigation filed by a number of ration card holders. They claimed …
green guarantee: The Centre will extend its rural job guarantee schemes to plantations. State governments have been asked to deploy "tree guards' to protect "avenue plantations' on rural roads prescribed to be taken up under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana. The plantation costs will …
The National Food for Work Programme (NFFWP), launched in 2004, identified 50 backward districts, where employment guarantee scheme was to get started. The 150 districts were identified by the Planning Commission on the basis of three criteria, Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST) population, agricultural productivity per worker, and agricultural wage rate …
function table() { var popurl="image/20060930/43-table.jpg" winpops=window.open(popurl,"","width=575,height=500,scrollbars=yes") } It's been six months since the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (nrega) was launched. And now, the government and civil society organisations are at loggerheads over the "success' of the act. While government claims that nrega has achieved a success rate of over …
This study quantifies the tangible, economic benefits of a nongovernmental organization's social forestry project to local people and analyzes the potential return from this investment in natural capital. The analysis was conducted in the Kumaun hill region of Uttaranchal, India, using participatory rapid appraisal, household survey, avoided cost method, and …
Medicinal and aromatic plants are critical to Himachal Pradesh's rural economy. Twenty four of the 100 most important medicinal plant species traded in the country are found in the state. The state exports some 2,500 tonnes of medicinal plants and their parts. The legal annual trade in medicinal plants in …
Ending a six-month long suspension, the World Bank has agreed to continue financial assistance to Chad, after the country fell in with the bank's conditions on spending petrodollars. Under the agreement, Chad has said it will devote 70 per cent of its oil revenues to poverty reduction programmes in the …
function table() { var popurl="image/20060715/19-table.jpg" winpops=window.open(popurl,"","width=650,height=250,scrollbars=yes") } In a recent decision taken in June this year, the Union ministry of rural development has chosen not to extend the rural employment guarantee scheme, launched by the United Progressive Alliance (upa) government in February 2006, to other areas till December. This has …
