-Governance Now Govt's flagship programmes remain poorly publicised because ministries issue direct advts, bypass DAVP, says I&B min Why the government does not launch a sustained media campaign to let the people take notice of its flagship and other socio-economic programmes? Information and Broadcasting minister Ambika Soni at the receiving end of the Congress Party repeatedly asking this question has tried to put the blame on the ministries issuing direct advertisements bypassing...

“Huge subsidy on chemical fertilisers unmindful, useless” Small and marginal farmers have raised the demand for special allocation for organic farming and ecological fertilisation in the forthcoming budget, which finance minister Pranab Mukherjee will present on March 16. According to them, chemical fertilisers, the subsidy for which is likely to touch Rs 1 lakh crore in 2011-12,  are not benefitting the soil and are burdening them with high-cost cultivation instead. “The government...

Kanak Dixit: We have with us Aruna Roy, from Devdungri village in Rajasthan, who has, among other things, been able to take the Right to Information (RTI) from janasunuwais, or public hearings at the village level, all the way to national legislation that encompasses all of India. It is a movement that is truly global in scale. Aruna, a question that has been troubling me quite a bit in the context...

India has just been taken off the World Health Organisation (WHO) list of polio-endemic countries. And if the success of not having a single new case over the past year is sustained for another two years, India will finally emerge as a polio-free country. The nation's public health administrators and international agencies deserve praise for this achievement. This is also perhaps just the right moment to recall the hands-on leadership role...

-AP India has shut down three aid organizations it says were diverting foreign funds toward rallying protests against a Russian-built nuclear plant in the south, but one group on Saturday denied any involvement in the protests while another said its efforts were entirely homegrown.  Activists opposed to an expansion of India's atomic energy portfolio argue that Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster caused by a massive earthquake and tsunami last March showed that such...