NEW DELHI: The government will soon provide loans at a subsidised rate of 7% to women's self-help groups (SHGs) under the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) to promote self employment among rural womenfolk.
"Under the current plan, the total expenditure in the current year will be around Rs 1,650 crore, of which Rs 1,400 crore will be borne by the central government and the remaining Rs 250 crore by the respective states," rural development minister Jairam Ramesh said on Monday. Read more
Source : economictimes.indiatimes.com
BANGALORE : Urban areas, including Bangalore, register low turnout
ENTHUSIASTIC: Senior citizens arrive in a bullock cart to cast their votes at Tegur near Chikmagalur on Sunday.
While 70.23 per cent of the electorate exercised its franchise on Sunday across Karnataka, urban areas, including Bangalore, registered lower turnout compared to the rest. The average turnout in Bangalore Urban district was 52.83 per cent.
Districts in north and coastal Karnataka witnessed turnouts ranging from 73.92 per cent in Dakshina Kannada to 62.92 per cent in Raichur district. Extremely hot weather conditions in northern Karnataka appear to have dissuaded many from coming out to vote. Read more
Source : www.thehindu.com
Kolkata/Murshidabad: Several projects under the Multi Sectoral Development Program for Minorities are in cold storage, as the West Bengal Government has seized the power of the Gram Panchayet, Panchayet Samaity and Zilla Parishad in finalizing projects and allocating funds and assigned the same to the District Magistrate.
In Murshidabad, the district with largest Muslim population, alone about Rs 5 crore is in lurch. Further the finance budget 2013-14 of the Murshidabad Zilla Parishad has been declined. There might be political angle to it though as the Murshidabad Zilla Parishad is led by CPIM. Read more
Source : twocircles.net
Multitudes have to be connected to modernity for our great leap forward
A group of BPO recruits at a training session in Uttarakhand
It has become a cliche to speak of India as a land of paradoxes. The old joke about our country is that anything you say about India, the opposite is also true. We like to think of ourselves as an ancient civilisation but we are also a young republic; our IT experts stride confidently into the twenty-first century but much of our population seems to live in each of the other twenty centuries. Quite often, the opposites coexist quite cheerfully. One of my favourite images of India is from the last Kumbh Mela, of a naked sadhu, straight out of central casting, with matted hair, ash-smeared forehead and scraggly beard, a rudraksha mala around his scrawny neck and a distant gaze in his eyes, for all the world a picture of timeless other-worldliness, chatting away on a mobile phone.
Young Indians are growing into such a paradoxical India. What are the prospects for the expansion of the participative political space in tomorrow’s India, say over the next two decades? To me this desirable objective requires both growth and equity. It is happening, but there’s still a lot that needs to be done before we get there. Read more
Source : www.outlookindia.com
The end doesn't always justify the means and the case in point this time is Bihar Chief Minister's recent campaign to promote his government's rural development programmes. He is caught on the wrong side of the law for holding public screenings of Basu Bhattacharya's iconic film 'Teesri Kasam' that won the National Award for best feature, without seeking the required permission.
Source : timesofindia.indiatimes.com
New Delhi : The comptroller and auditor general has said that the government’s flagship rural employment scheme is disconnected from the poverty regions of the country, suggesting that proper implementation would have improved the lot of the poor.
A CAG report auditing the performance of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) between April 2007 and March 2012 says that Bihar, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh account for 46% of India’s rural poor but the states were able to utilise only 20% of the funds spent nationally. Read more
Source : www.hindustantimes.com
Cricketing icon Sachin Tendulkar and Schneider Electric have joined hands to provide cheap, efficient and eco-friendly electrification in the rural areas in the country.
"Sachin Tendulkar and Schneider Electric India have come together for 'Spreading Happiness', a non profit organisation, to provide access to rural electrification by installing solar home lighting systems for the benefit of over 25,000 villagers in India," Schenider Electric said in a release. Read more
Source : www.indianexpress.com
Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday blamed the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in New Delhi for playing "sheer politics" by not yet releasing its share of the funds for the rural job scheme.
The rural job scheme provides 100 days wage employment to every household, whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.
Bengal's spending on the 100 days of jobs provided under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) was the country's highest at Rs. 4,408.70 crore, as against a total fund availability of Rs. 4,108.03 crore, the chief minister claimed. Read more
Source : ibnlive.in.com
Mohali: The gap between urban and rural should be bridged for overall development of the country, former President and 'Missile Man of India' APJ Abdul Kalam said on Thursday.
Addressing engineering students of Chandigarh University during a convocation ceremony at Landran near here, Kalam said development of rural areas was the need of the hour as the real power of the country lies in its villages. Read more
Source : ibnlive.in.com
"33 cr Sainth cluster model village sanctioned"
JAMMU, Kashmir -- Reiterating resolve of the government to address infrastructure requirements of far flung areas, Deputy Chief Minister Tara Chand today said that meeting development needs of rural, border and far-off belts of the state is high on the agenda and ambitious projects have been launched to equip these areas with all required modern facilities. He said with active support from the union government exemplary initiatives have been taken for all round development of the state.
“We are committed to make the state a model state in the country and mega infrastructure development projects have been launched to transform development profile of the state,” he added. Read more
Source : www.authintmail.com
New Delhi: Rural areas in India can operate as back offices for the country's urban centres, like Bangalore has emerged as a crucial centre for the US, National Innovation Council Chairman Sam Pitroda said Wednesday.
If Bangalore can become the back office of the US, then there is no reason as to why rural India cannot become the back office of urban India, he said at CII's AGM meeting here. Read more
Source : zeenews.india.com
Energy NGO Teri has revolutionised 500,000 lives through a scheme that uses solar LED lanterns to provide cheap power.
India's rush for industrialisation may be stymied by a lack of power for its factories, but, barely noticed, solar electricity is being taken to thousands of villages in one of the most ambitious grassroots projects ever attempted.
Five years ago an estimated 400 million people lived with rudimentary, low-quality kerosene lamps, providing poor, polluting and often dangerous light. A further 100 m homes were nominally connected to the grid but had intermittent power, often at times when no one wanted it. Read more
Source : www.guardian.co.uk
Some 31 per cent of India’s 1.2 bn people live in towns and cities according to India’s 2011 census, up from 28 per cent in the 2001 census.
Shopping centre, Gurgaon. Photo: Bloomberg
Now the process of urbanisation is speeding up and it is tier 2 and tier 3 cities that are leading the way, argue Sheela Rathi and colleagues at Morgan Stanley in a report published this week. Read more
Source : blogs.ft.com
National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) has estimated the prioritised resource requirement for critical infrastructure needs at Rs 8,098.19 crore for Karnataka during the 12th Plan period. Nabard has adopted the theme "Critical Rural Infrastructure for agriculture and rural development" for 2013-14.
According to Nabard, the critical infrastructure is defined as that infrastructure, which if created, will support increased credit flow under agriculture and benefit a large number of people. Critical infrastructure, therefore covers infrastructure having a large impact on livelihoods and income levels of rural population, critical constraints in improving productivity / production levels of farmers and infrastructure that leads to environmentally sustainable development, the bank said in its latest State Focus Paper. Read more
Source : www.business-standard.com
Gujarat is country's most urbanised state and Chief Minister Narendra Modi talks about this people-centric transformation.
Making urbanisation work - Gujarat way
Dear Friends,
A few weeks ago, I went to inaugurate the International Kite Festival at Ahmedabad's Sabarmati Riverfront. On the banks of the majestic Sabarmati, we witnessed a cultural extravaganza and welcomed participants from various nations across the world. But, the same area was a picture in contrast years ago. My visit to the Riverfront took me down the memory lane to a time when the Sabarmati River was everything but a water body. Youngsters would play cricket and circuses were held on the riverbed. Read more
Source : news.oneindia.in
Indian government and carriers must work together to drive large-scale deployments of M2M, which can improve the life of villagers while bringing more revenues for telcos.
NEW DELHI--The Indian government and local telcos should work together to drive large-scale deployments of machine-to-machine (M2M), which can enhance the life of residents living in villages while bringing more revenues for telcos.
M2M apps enable farmers to monitor and turn on irrigation pumps in remote locations via mobile phones.
M2M holds tremendous potential for rural India, noted David Ranjit William, assistant vice president of engineering, carrier services and solutions, Aricent group. "In rural India, M2M will ensure optimal utilization of limited resources like water and energy, and provide better healthcare and education services to rural masses through remotely managed applications," William said. Read more
Source : www.zdnet.com
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