-The Business Standard Relative price changes across food items may impinge on long-term food security Rising food prices have been a significant driver of inflation in India over the past few years. In early 2008, there was a global surge in food prices, which certainly had an impact on the domestic situation. But, this subsided in a few months. Since then, the pressures seem to have been predominantly internal. If these trends...

-PTI Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on Friday set a deadline of March 31 for completing issuance of Aadhaar number to people in the city so that all major welfare schemes could be linked to it soon. Dikshit issued the direction at a high-level meeting which reviewed the implementation of direct cash transfer schemes of the central government that was rolled out in two districts of the city last month. As per official...

-The Times of India The Union government downplayed the opposition's concern over allowing foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail and informed the Supreme Court on Friday that the policy, when fully implemented, would touch the lives of only 13.3% of the country's population living in 53 cities. The government said its policy on FDI in multi-brand retail stipulated that retail sales outlets could be set up only in cities with a population...

-The Hindu Regulating content on community radio is detrimental to its efforts to engage with local communities The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MoIB) organised the 3rd National Community Radio Sammelan from February 9 to 11 to celebrate a decade of community radio. The celebrations were cut short when Secretary to MoIB Uday Kumar Varma confirmed that community radio stations would not be allowed to broadcast news for some time to come....

-Down to Earth Budget to start process of reforming Central rural schemes, 45 years after first demand India’s rural development programmes are in for an overhaul. After the approval of the 12th Plan by the National Development Council (NDC) on December 27, 2012, the government has started restructuring of the behemoth called Centrally sponsored schemes (CSSs). In the Plan (2012-17) the Centre has committed Rs 541,276 crore for CSSs covering rural development,...