-The Hindu Social audits of the mid-day meal scheme by parents can ensure that the world's largest intervention against hunger that also helps keep children in school need not suffer setbacks like the Bihar tragedy This week, 23 children lost their lives after having a mid-day meal served at a school in Bihar's Saran district. Preliminary reports suggest that the school lacked a storage facility for foodgrain which led to contamination and...
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Now, 20-member panel to scrutinize midday meal quality
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: In the aftermath of the Bihar mid-day meal (MDM) tragedy that resulted in the death of more than 20 children, the HRD ministry on Thursday announced setting up a new 20-member committee to go into the quality aspect of the MDM scheme nationwide. The committee, to be headed by HRD minister M M Pallam Raju, would have secretaries of ministries of women & child development, health,...
More »CAG had warned last year about Uttarakhand crisis in making-Himanshu Upadhyaya
-Governance Now A CAG report dated March 15, 2013 had found Uttarakhand sitting on a time bomb, with nearly zero disaster preparedness back in Sept 2012 when the nationwide performance audit was done. Will other states, marked equally poorly in the audit, sit up and smell the coffee? The massive disaster in Uttarakhand has brought to the fore not only the old debate of ecology versus development but also thrown up...
More »Watershed moment -Himanshu Upadhyaya
-Timescrest.com Three successive CAG Reports warned the Uttarakhand govt about the consequences of multiple hydropower projects, and their unpreparedness in the face of disaster. The advice was ignored. With aim of turning Uttarakhand into Urja Pradesh, the state has committed to building 680 dams, currently in various stages of commissioning, construction and planning. The powers that be have expedited the clearances for these projects. However, when it came to the issue of credible...
More »Another PIL on Sashi Kant Sharma as CAG
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Former chief election commissioner N Gopalaswamy and ex-Admirals R H Tahiliani and L Ramdas along with six other eminent persons on Monday petitioned the Supreme Court challenging appointment of former defence secretary Sashi Kant Sharma as the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG). This is the second PIL within a fortnight, and follows one filed by advocate M L Sharma, who, too, had challenged the discretion vested...
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