Dispur has decided to set up a children welfare trust to adopt a holistic and comprehensive policy for physical and mental wellbeing of every child living in Assam. The trust will be headed by chief minister Tarun Gogoi and include personalities like industrialist Ratan Tata as its member. The government will formally float the trust on November 14 on the occasion of Children’s Day. Health and family welfare minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told...

Minister of state for food and civil supplies Babu Lal Nagar seems to have landed in deeper trouble over alleged corruption in allotment of foodgrain under the public distribution system (PDS). According to sources, the Centre had clearly restrained the food and civil supplies department from distributing wheat allotted under PDS in the form of aata (flour), maida (refined flour) or suji (semolina flour). The department admits this in para-2...

BANGALORE: Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Minister R. Ashok has said biometric ration cards for both below poverty line (BPL) and above poverty line (APL) categories will be issued in the State in another two months. The Minister told presspersons here on Wednesday that the Union Government had informed the State Government that it would reimburse the expenditure incurred for issuing the biometric cards to families. Issuance of biometric cards...

`Financial Inclusion' as defined by the committee of financial inclusion is the process of ensuring access to financial services and timely and adequate credit, where needed by vulnerable groups, such as weaker sections and lower income groups at an affordable cost. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has selected Baikunthpur village in Narayanpur block of Mirzapur district to provide banking services to the villagers under its financial inclusion programme. The programme...

Canada hosted this year’s G-20 and as a follow-up it had a conference for Speakers of Second Chambers—or of unicameral ones where relevant—from September 2-5. The theme was Food Security and Financial Crisis. The burden of the speeches was predictable. Food security for most people is about agriculture and its protection. It is about food production and everyone wished they could grow more food. Others took a neo-Malthusian line that the...