-PTI   Highlighting that 42 per cent children were underweight in a country witnessing high growth, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today described it as a national shame and said the government could not rely solely on ICDS, a programme for early childhood development, to address it.  "...The problem of malnutrition is a matter of national shame. Despite impressive growth in our GDP, the level of under-nutrition in the country is unacceptably high," he...

-The Hindu   Members quite satisfied with Chief Minister's stand on the issue   Sticking to the position that nothing short of closure of the Nuclear Power Plants in Kudankulam would satisfy them, members of the People's Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE) on Monday announced a series of protests in January to highlight their demand. Talking to reporters, S.P. Udayakumar, Co-ordinator of the PMANE, said on January 14, the day of Bhogi, villagers in Kudankulam...

-The Hindu   One lakh LIG/EWS housing units to be ready in three years Delhi Development Authority vice-chairman G. S. Patnaik on Tuesday reaffirmed the Authority's intention to deliver one lakh housing units for low-income and economically weaker sections of society within three years. He said construction of 20,040 EWS houses using prefab-technology was progressing and he expected to deliver 8,000 of these units in 2012. Mr. Patnaik said that 12,000 demand letters were...

One of the great achievements of India is our free and vibrant press. This is an accomplishment of direct relevance to the working of democracy. Authoritarianism flourishes not only by stifling opposition, but also by systematically suppressing information. The survival and flowering of Indian democracy owes a great deal to the freedom and vigour of our press. There are so many occasions when, sitting even in Europe or in America,...

-PTI   A social audit of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (MNREG) programme in Andhra Pradesh has established that a total of Rs 109 crore were “deviated” since it launch. Of the amount, Rs 46.94 crore were found to have been “misappropriated”, according to the state Minister for Rural Development, Dokka Mankiya Varaprasad. “Of the misappropriated sum, we have so far recovered Rs 17.5 crore,” the minister told reporters after releasing the 2012...