-Hindustan Times The human resource development ministry describes the self-help groups and cook-cum-helpers as pillars of the programme. New Delhi: The human resource development (HRD) ministry has asked states to get all midday meal cooks-cum-helpers trained by “master trainers” by the end of this year. In a letter sent to heads of state education departments, the ministry has suggested they can get the cook-cum-helpers in their jurisdiction trained by master chefs of the...

-Hindustan Times While Delhi came under flak for running fewer buses than that it did three years ago and therefore failing to enforce blanket road rationing, compliance of even basic anti-pollution measures was impossible in the NCR because of poor infrastructure. The Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) mandated by the Supreme Court to counter air pollution was meant to be an effort in regional cooperation. The entire National Capital Region (NCR), which...

-Hindustan Times The audit also recommended abolishing admission quotas, including those under the discretion of the vice-chancellor; no official reason was given for the audit. New Delhi: The Aligarh Muslim University must abolish separate colleges for male and female undergraduate students, do away with discretionary admission quotas and merge the departments for Sunni and Shia studies, a government-backed audit of the institution has suggested. These are among the top recommendations the audit made...

-Hindustan Times The design of large injections of public funds for India’s agriculture economy needs to be informed with rigorous evaluations on what is effective for higher farm productivity. A wage subsidy for farm-labour is one modification that needs an evaluation, to generate evidence to inform how the MGNREGA policy generates employment when there is need, but without stress to farm production Indian agriculture is witnessing a period of complex socio-economic distress,...

-Hindustan Times Dehradun: Lack of watershed harvesting and monsoon-based farming is the key reason why crop intensity of Uttarakhand is poorer than neighbouring Himachal Pradesh, experts say. The crop intensity is the number of times a crop is planted in an agricultural area. Union ministry of agriculture and farmers’ welfare data, states that Himachal Pradesh reported a 3,100 hectare difference in the crop intensity index between 2012-13 and 2013-2014 while Uttarakhand reported a...