Villagers of Netai in Lalgarh could not conceal their grievance against the state administration when district police superintendent Monoj Verma and district magistrate Surendra Gupta reached the village on Sunday morning to supervise arrangements before governor M K Narayanan's visit on Wednesday. Gupta and Verma arrived at the village, escorted by heavy security, around 11am. Gupta started visiting different portions of the village and found a tube well that was not...

Food and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has declined to be dragged into the controversy surrounding the implementation of the food security Bill. The move assumes significance in the wake of the differences between Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) and the Rangarajan committee. Pawar said his ministry was ready to implement the Bill according to the decision taken by the government. On a visit to the state-of-the-art Gowardhan dairy at Manchar,...

Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, while admitting inflation was a cause for concern, attributed the upward trend to the gap between supply and demand. Pawar was speaking to reporters after inaugurating the Centre of Excellence for vegetable, under the Israel-India cooperation in Agriculture. Pawar maintained while the production of a few commodities was increasing, the demand was invariably surpassing the supply, leading to inflation in prices. He maintained the government was looking to...

Faced with full demolition, the Adarsh housing society today said it would challenge the “mala fide” order in the high court even as it slammed environment minister Jairam Ramesh for his tearing hurry. “Right from day one, even before the show-cause notice was issued to the society, the minister has been saying the building would be demolished. It is a mala fide order. The minister seemed to be in a tearing...

The Rangarajan Committee report is another move away from the vision of a comprehensive food security act. Undernutrition levels in India are among the highest in the world, and the problem cannot be addressed by just spending another Rs 10,000 crores or so on the Public Distribution System . The need of the hour is a comprehensive food security act that integrates a wide range of interventions, including maternity entitlements,...