-The Indian Express The UPA has long been planning a shift to direct cash transfers for poor households, with a view to replacing the 3.23 lakh crore worth of unwieldy subsidies currently in place. Last year, the then finance minister Pranab Mukherjee had spoken of the famously inefficient food and fertiliser subsidies, and of a comprehensive overhaul through cash transfers. Now, that plan has been fleshed out further. The prime minister...

-The Telegraph The Sonia Gandhi-headed National Advisory Council has suggested revamping the way tribal and Dalit welfare programmes are now implemented, saying these have failed to make much difference to their lives. Council member N.C. Saxena told The Telegraph that the funds allotted for Dalit and tribal welfare schemes are now mostly spent on wider projects, diluting the benefits, which accrue to all rather than specifically to Dalits and tribals. The council examined...

-The Hindu In the latest move on its Social Welfare agenda, the government may expand its pension scheme, widening the net for widows, single and divorced women, disabled people, Dalits and tribal senior citizens, as well as increasing the amount paid to older people. The Rural Development Ministry, which is proposing the expansion, estimates the additional cost at more than Rs. 18,000 crore per year. The Ministry has just accepted the recommendations made...

-DNA Top corporates and businessmen appear to be in a rush to defend themselves following a report in New Delhi-based tabloid Mail Today that they funded Arvind Kejriwal-led India Against Corruption (IAC). The Tata Social Welfare Trust clarified that while it had indeed made a grant of Rs 25 lakh a year to Kejriwal’s NGO, the Ghaziabad-based Public Cause Research Foundation (PCRF) beginning 2009, the money was not meant to be used...

On November 23, the Supreme Court is slated to hear a damning report submitted by the court-appointed Commissioners on how politically connected contractors—legally barred from the ICDS program—might be subverting the Social Welfare measure in the state of Maharashtra.  The ICDS is an Rs 8000 crore government-funded program aimed at ending India’s abysmal rates of child malnutrition by supplying hot cooked meals and take home rations to children through decentralised women-run,...