GUWAHATI, April 11: The main objectives of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) are rural development and employment.

BJP, JD(U) now ask for leasing instead of takeover; Jairam, Sharad Yadav to discuss on Friday.

In a push to the contentious Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill before the all-party meeting on April 18, the Centre is reaching out to various political parties in an attemp

Agartala: Left-ruled Tripura provided 86.27 days of work under the central government’s flagship rural jobs scheme in fiscal 2012-13, the highest in the country, a minister said here Tuesday.

Quoting the performance report of the union rural development ministry, state Rural Development Minister Jitendra Chaudhury told reporters that Tripura has been providing the highest average employment for the past four years under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).

Rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has urged the state governments to improve and expedite existing land reform measures to address the needs of the poor and landless, a tacit recognition tha

The state has taken the lead by setting up a toll-free rural helpline for redressing complaints.

Union minister says it only leads to increased Maoist activity in the areas

Arguing that mining in tribal areas would lead to increased Maoist activity, Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh has called for a 20-year moratorium on mining projects that affect the livelihood sources of the tribal communities in Andhra Pradesh. “Nowhere in the country has mining benefited the tribals. Only a few outsiders became rich while the locals remained poor,” Ramesh said while addressing a public meeting at GK Veedhi, a remote tribal hamlet in the coastal Andhra district of Visakhapatnam.

Any economist will tell us what India can become," said Finance Minister P. Chidambaram as he wrapped up his 90-minute Budget speech.

In a bid to bring in more accountability and improve fund utilisation, the Ministry of Rural Development is in the process of revising the guidelines of its marquee rural housing scheme, the Indira

Work on underpasses to create long-term assets

The UPA government's flagship social sector programme — the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) — will now be able to create permanent infrastructure assets, giving the seven-year-old scheme providing livelihood to almost 5 crore families annually an altogether new direction. The rural development ministry has decided to include building railway underpasses under the ambit of NREGS. An official announcement is expected shortly.