Acknowledging that the rotting foodgrain was “shameful” , the government told Parliament on Tuesday that aggressive measures will be taken to increase storage capacity in the next 2-3 years. The government was also considering giving infrastructure status to warehouses to attract the private sector into the field in a bid to increase storage space. Responding to a calling attention motion in the Rajya Sabha, agriculture minister Sharad pawar said: “We...

Putting an end to the months of controversy over fund sharing for the Right to Education Act, the Union government has now fixed a 65-35 sharing pattern. The pattern, which received the in-principal approval of the expenditure finance committee of the ministry of finance, will be applicable for the next five years. With this, states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, both governments that had demanded 100% Central assistance, will have...

The 1,600 families in Haryana’s Panchkula district which line up at fair price shops for foodgrains and kerosene can do away with their prized ration cards, pieces of paper that entitle the poor to subsidized food and fuel. Beginning Tuesday, while they still have to queue up, these families will receive their rations after a biometric identification using smart cards. That’s a small beginning for an ambitious Rs138 crore Centrally funded project...

The Centre wants all `kutcha' houses to be replaced by durable, disaster-resistant structures by 2016-17. It forms the big expression of intent in the first-of-its-kind `rural housing and habitat policy' that UPA may announce soon. The government wants to engage NGOs in rural housing, a sector the voluntary organisations have shunned till now. The government feels the rural populace will benefit from NGOs in the field of "technology dissemination" and...

The Planning Commission today decided in favour of pumping nearly Rs 14,000 crore into social and physical infrastructure building in some 35 Maoist-hit districts. The plan, formulated at the request of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, will focus on the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme, rural roads, health, rural electricity, universal elementary education, child nutrition and health and new residential schools called ashram schools. Later this month, the action plan will be placed...