Source: PTI/IANS The World Bank has announced $4.3 billion in financial aid to India through a new innovative and flexible financing arrangement to help the country fight poverty. The arrangement, while facilitating a $4.3 billion increase in support to India, is designed to maintain International Bank for Reconstruction and Development's -- which is its lending arm -- net exposure within the limit of $17.5 billion established by it. In a statement, the World...

-The Hindu Food subsidies for poorest will help them cope: ADB A hike in the cost of food staples like rice and wheat could push tens of millions more people into extreme poverty in the South Asian region including India, says an Asian Development Bank (ADB) report. The Manila-based lending agency, in its report “Food Price Escalation in South Asia – A Serious and Growing Concern” released on Monday, however, said that food...

-PTI The World Bank has announced $ 4.3 billion financial aid to India through a new innovative and flexible financing arrangement to help the country fight poverty. This arrangement, while facilitating a $ 4.3 billion increase in support to India, is designed to maintain International Bank for Reconstruction and Development's (IBRD) - which is its lending arm - net exposure within the limit of $ 17.5 billion established by it. In a statement,...

India moved a step closer to implementing cash transfers of direct subsidies and social welfare payments after a high-level panel presented the blueprint for effecting it through an Aadhaar-based payment gateway. Accepting the report, which details how all payments and cash transfers can be made electronically, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee indicated that it will be the key to plug leakages and ensure more targeted spending under the government’s social welfare programmes. The...

While pressure is mounting on the state government to declare the Sathyamangalam Wildlife Sanctuary as a tiger reserve, there is mounting resentment among tribals living on the forest fringes, against attempts of the forest department to curb access to the jungles to collect forest produce and graze cattle. Forest officials have already directed them to sell their cattle and look for alternative means of livelihood.  Irked by the move, over 10,000...