-The Hindu Country still has large swathes of contiguous forests accounting for 40% of the forest cover There has been an increase of 5,871 sq km of the country's forest area since 2011, even as moderately dense forest areas have depleted due to population increase, grazing and encroachments, says the biennial "India State of Forest Report 2013," which was released on Tuesday. Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests Prakash Javadekar, who...
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Aadhaar didn’t fit the bill -Yashwant Sinha
-The Indian Express UPA's version was inadequate. NDA must improve upon it. In your editorial on July 7 (‘A stronger Aadhaar', Indian Express) you have stated that "The BJP is complicit in Aadhaar's uncertain legal status - the UPA was forced to rely on executive orders because the UIDAI bill was held up by the Yashwant Sinha-headed standing committee on finance." The impression your editorial seeks to convey is entirely erroneous. It...
More »On the mythology of social policy -Jean Drèze
-The Hindu India is among the world champions of social underspending. Without enlightened social policies, growth mania is unlikely to deliver more under the new government than it did under the previous one Few people today remember the letter written on August 7, 2013 by Mr. Narendra Modi, then Chief Minister of Gujarat, to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. In this letter, available on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) website, Mr. Modi criticised...
More »States reject plan for cash payments -Archana Jyoti
-The Pioneer Citing security reasons, State Governments have rejected the Centre's proposal to dole out cash to the MGNREGA beneficiaries in the villages having poor network of internet or banks and post offices in the country. Sources in the Union Rural Development Ministry, which is executing the MGNREGA scheme, said that the Central Government had recently asked the States to identify 800-1,000 blocks where rural job workers have not been able...
More »Bihar records highest dip in poverty ratio -Chetan Chauhan
-The Hindustan Times In what could be a relief to Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar, the C Rangarajan panel on poverty estimation report has said that in Bihar the poverty ratios dipped by over one-third in just two years between 2009-10 and 2011-12 - much greater than any other state in India. Kumar had resigned as Bihar chief minister after receiving drubbing at the hands of the BJP-led...
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