In a setback to the Election Commission (EC), its pilot poll conducted on Sunday to establish a paper trail for electronic voting machines (EVMs) reported significant errors. Preliminary results of the EC pilot poll indicated discrepancies between votes polled in EVMs and the paper trail, according to three people involved and familiar with the testing process. Two of them are EC officials who confirmed the mismatch, but did not give any...
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Centre to consult Chief Ministers, parties on land acquisition and rehabilitation Bill by K Balchand
The UPA government has decided to consult all the Chief Ministers, political parties and other stakeholders after posting on the web the draft land acquisition and rehabilitation and resettlement Bill by Saturday. Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh told journalists he would be sending a copy of the draft legislation to all the Chief Ministers and seek their comments. He will also be conferring with some of them personally. Mr. Ramesh...
More »'A-maizing' progress by Surinder Sud
Breakthroughs in the production and productivity of wheat and rice in the sixties and of cotton recently have been much appreciated, but similar advances in maize have gone largely unnoticed and unsung. Maize output has soared in the past 10 years from a mere 12 million tonnes in 2000-01 to over 21 million tonnes in 2010-11. This increase can largely be attributed to a surge in crop productivity rather than...
More »PDS: Reform or Reject? by Rukmini Shrinivasan
Some interesting findings emerging on the Public Distribution System. A recent study of 100 villages in nine states says that leakages in the Public Distribution System are being plugged and diversion of grain has reduced, except in Bihar. The bad news, the researchers say, is that there are serious deficiencies in the BPL list. The study was conducted in 106 randomly selected villages in two districts each of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh,...
More »Chhattisgarh to file review petition on disbanding SPOs by Neena Vyas
A day after the Centre filed a review petition in the Supreme Court on its order related to black money, the Bharatiya Janata Party too decided to go for a review plea on its ruling disbanding and disarming special police officers (SPOs). Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh, who was here on Saturday, said he had consulted several lawyers on the Supreme Court's judgment on SPOs. “We have 100 per cent made...
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