The Union Minister of State for Communications & IT, Shri Sachin Pilot has said today that nationwide random testing of radiations emitted by mobile towers will commence from November 16, 2010 onwards by the Telecom Engineering and Resource Monitoring (TERM) Cells. The progress in this regard and compliance levels will be monitored centrally, and non-compliance will result in fines and penalties envisaged in existing guidelines and amended license conditions, including...

Can the government break its own laws? That seems to be the case when it comes to minimum wages in the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), which makes the government the employer of the world’s largest workforce of close to 35 million job-card holders. In 19 states, the workers are getting less than the minimum wages in their areas, with the rural development ministry and the labour ministry looking the...

The case of the Food Security Bill gets curiouser and curiouser.  What started off as a fight between universalization and targeting has ended (or so it would seem) in a complete victory in the National Advisory Council, Government of India (NAC) for targeting through universalization (if such a thing was possible), with the honourable exception of Prof Jean Dreze, who has to be commended for his ‘note of disagreement’. On...

The National Advisory Council, headed by Congress Party president Sonia Gandhi, may have grudgingly settled for a much less ambitious National Food Security Act than previously envisaged. But a proactive Sonia now plans to push for a full-fledged ministry of food security, carving it out of the agriculture ministry headed by NCP chief Sharad Pawar. Sources said she had been advised by stakeholders in the party and outside that the ministry of...

Union Minister of State for Agriculture K V Thomas today said impact of climate change on agriculture in India would be "far reaching" as a major chunk of population is dependent on it. "Due to high percentage of population dependent on agriculture, excessive pressure on natural resources and lack of fast alternatives, the impact of climate change on agriculture will be far reaching in the country," he said, inaugurating an...