-The Hindu Business Line     Whatever the criticisms against the UPA government may be, its effort to provide employment to large sections of the population under the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act must be lauded. Yet, after the initial success of the scheme, the enthusiasm of the Central government itself seems to have diminished in its second term in power. How palpable is the shift to lower gear? Representatives of the UPA...

-Newsclick.in With sixty percent children malnourished in the state, the implementation of the Integrated Child Development Services, the largest scheme to provide nutrition to children in the country, is nothing but a sham. Sitting outside her semi-pucca house in Bilgram block, Kasturi says, "My children get five fistful of panjiri once a month from the Aanganwadi Centre." Thirty-three year-old Kasturi has never, in her parents' village or her in-law's village seen an...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Moving at a feverish pitch to fulfill the second most important of his poll promises, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal gave 80% of the capital's electricity consumers cause to ring in the new year with much cheer. They will be paying half of what they had to pay so far with the tariff for consumption up to 400 units a month slashed by 50%, thanks to...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Opposition parties and activists who have been campaigning against private discoms and tariff hikes slammed the government's decision to increase the subsidy on power consumption on Tuesday. While BJP criticized the move, Congress said it is analyzing the implications of the subsidy announcement. BJP said money meant for welfare schemes would be spent on the increased subsidy. "He is giving subsidy to people at the cost...

-The Times of India LUCKNOW: Union minister for rural development Jairam Ramesh on Tuesday shot off another letter to the Akhilesh Yadav government, accusing it of having failed to spend money given under the central schemes. This is Jairam's sixth dispatch to the SP government since it came to power in March, 2012. The letter to the chief minister focuses on the implementation of the Integrated Watershed Management Programme (IWMP), a centrally-funded...