Even as this shocking number of malnutrition deaths is reported from Nashik alone, much of Rs 600 crore child welfare budget seems to have been spent on expensive toys et al In commodity purchases that seem to give direct competition to the Organising Committee's orders for the Commonwealth Games (CWG), the State Women and Child Development department spent Rs 13,801 each for a set of four steel utensils consisting of a...

The finance ministry has asked the telecom department not to entrust state-owned BSNL with the Rs 20,000-crore project to build a nationalbroadband network to take high-speed internet to the hinterlands. It has recommended that a special purpose vehicle (SPV), consisting of many mobile phone companies, be entrusted with implementing this project, while adding that all stakeholders should be chosen through a transparent and competitive bidding process. The telecom department had identified...

India should facilitate private sector growth in higher education, particularly in technical subjects, and should explore and develop innovative public-private partnerships (PPP) in the 12th Five-year Plan In a potential game-changer for India’s education sector, the Planning Commission has suggested that the country allow establishing institutes of higher learning that could be run for profit. “The not-for-profit tag in higher education sector should perhaps be re-examined in a more pragmatic manner so...

-The Hindustan Times   Terming its impact in curbing sex-selective abortions in Kolhapur district "heart warming", the Bombay high court (HC), on Friday, upheld the validity of Silent Observer - an electronic device attached to ultrasound machines that helps the administration in tracking sonographies conducted in a district. Dismissing the petition filed by the Maharashtra chapter of Indian Radiology and Imaging Association, the division bench of chief justice Mohit Shah and justice RP...

What can power do to a political party’s financial health? Quite a lot, it seems. An RTI query by a Chennai-based activist shows that the income of India’s longest-ruling national party, the Indian National Congress, increased from Rs 69.55 crore in 2002-03 to a whopping Rs 467.57 crore in 2010-11. Documents Accessed by activist V Gopalakrishnan show that the jump is even more evident when figures from 2003-04 are compared with...