-The Hindu Business Line With various data sources at its disposal, the MoSPI is best suited for the task, say officials New Delhi: The task of establishing accurate benchmarks for defining ‘poverty line’ is likely to go to the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation if the current thinking among the members of Niti Aayog task force on ‘Eliminating Poverty’ is anything to go by. The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI)...

-The Times of India Blog Stepping Into 100th Birth Anniv Of MGR, We Recall How His Pathbreaking Nutritious Meal Project Was Conceived And Implemented July 1, 1982 was a turning point in the political history of modern Tamil Nadu, when M G Ramachandran, the then chief minister of Tamil Nadu, ate a meal with primary school children in Pappakurichi village in Trichy district, marking the beginning of the chief minister’s nutritious noon...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The government has rubbished media reports that performance of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee programme in the current fiscal year will suffer due to arrears of wages of over Rs 8000 crore in 2015-16. Stating that certain facts in the reports have been highlighted without appreciating the larger picture, the government has clarified that is committed to ensure flow of adequate resources to the programme...

-Business Standard FCRA amendment raises questions about ethical governance The little-noticed announcement in the Finance Bill to retrospectively amend a clause in the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) does little to enhance the government's reputation for ethical governance. The amendment, to apply from 2010, will mean that donations to political parties by Indian companies with foreign direct investment within mandated sectoral limits will no longer be considered "foreign contributions". The FCRA bans...

Amidst the prevailing gloominess over agrarian crisis, a recently released report says that the growth rate of agricultural output in both India and China were the same during 2008-2013. The agricultural gross domestic product (GDP) of both these countries on an average grew at 3.3 percent per annum during that period. The latest available data from the 2016 Global Food Policy Report, however, indicates that the neighbouring countries of Sri Lanka...