-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The government plans to bring in a regulatory framework to rein in play schools, creches and day care centres' charging exorbitant fees without providing standardized curriculum and learning aids. The policy, which includes implementation and monitoring of early child care and education for children below six years, is likely to be discussed in the Union Cabinet on Thursday. The women and child development (WCD) ministry...

-PTI Expressing surprise on the absence of latest official data on malnutrition, a Parliamentary panel has asked the government to come up with a time-bound action plan to reduce under-nutrition and ensure real time flow of information for proper monitoring. "We are surprised to note that in this modern era of information technology, there is no recent official data on malnutrition. What is available is seven years old and outdated...National Family Health...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: The government is working on a new index based on the consumption pattern of rural landless labour to fix wages under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, a move that is set to result in slower annual wage hike increases under the government's flagship social welfare programme. Rural wages under MGNREGA are at present based on the consumer price index for agricultural labourers (CPI-AL), which...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) was supposed to be a game-changer ahead of the 2014 general elections, with the government planning to plug leakages by transferring cash directly into the accounts of beneficiaries and hoping to cash in on their goodwill. But eight months down the line, it is discovering that the grand plan has run into bureaucratic walls and the beneficiaries are not ready to...

-Outlook The Supreme Court today issued notice to the Centre and nine naxal-affected states on a PIL seeking direction to governments to formulate a central policy for handling the menace. A bench headed by Chief Justice P Sathasivan sought response from the Centre, states of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Utter Pradesh governments. The court passed the order on a plea filed by ex-MLA of...