An inconvenient truth? Or yet another case of shoddy data collection by state agencies? The government is scrambling to prove that it is the latter, after data on the UPA's flagship poverty alleviation programme shows that it may not be reaching its intended beneficiaries, those classified in official-speak as below the poverty line (BPL). A recent note circulated to all state departments by the rural development ministry revealed that only...

-Express News Service Applicants seeking admission to entry-level classes in private schools under the 25 per cent reservation of Right to Education (RTE) Act 2009 can apply in their neighbouring schools by January 20. As per the guidelines framed by UT Administration, in compliance with the provisions of RTE Act, an applicant either from Economically Weaker Section (EWS) or disadvantaged groups of society, can apply in a school SITuated within a radius...

-The Times of India   Bringing India's external intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), at par with international spy agencies in terms of arming it with legal snooping powers, the government recently notified it as one of the eight agencies to intercept phone calls, emails and voice and data communications 'domestically'. The other agencies in the list are Intelligence Bureau, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Enforcement Directorate, Narcotics Control Bureau, Central Bureau of...

Viju Diwa is barely 11. So it seems strange to see him carrying bricks on his head. “He is not a labourer here,” Kisan Mhatre, a brick kiln owner of Mharal village outside Mumbai’s far northern suburb of Kalyan protests and shouts at his father and worker Arjun, 30. “They push their children into labour and then the government, the media and everyone comes to trouble us,” says Mhatre. When this DNA...

Two days after a clash at the proposed Posco SITe that left one person dead, the Orissa government on Friday shifted senior IAS officer Priyabrata Patnaik from the post of chairman-cum-managing director of Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (IDCO) even as the oppoSITion continued to demand a CBI or a judicial probe into the incident. With just about a year to retire, Patnaik, a 1976 batch officer, has been posted as additional...