Drought hit farmers in himachal pradesh will get 50 per cent subsidy on kharif seeds. “Due to deficient rains from October to March coupled with the abnormal rise in temperature in March and April the standing grain crops have been partly damaged,” said a spokesman of the state agriculture department. The official said in the current kharif season, about 35,000 quintals of seeds will be supplied by the department to the farmers...

The Indian Electricity Act, 2003, initially envisaged that the appropriate governments shall endeavour to supply electricity to all areas including villages and hamlets (Section 6), thus placing the responsibility for ensuring rural electricity supply on state governments. The UPA-I government amended this section to read as follows after detailed deliberations internally and with opposition parties: the concerned state government and the central government shall jointly endeavour to provide access to...

The annual confidential report (ACRs) of an IAS officer may now depend a lot on the administrative skills he shows in the implementation of several centrally-sponsored social sector programmes and how effectively he takes a district up on the developmental parameters. Concerned at largescale leakages in many of the social sector schemes, the Manmohan Singh government has asked its official auditor, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), to change the...

In the least remarked upon move by the government to take on the development challenge in left-wing extremist (LWE) areas, Sudha Pillai was elevated to member-secretary of the Planning Commission on the eve of her retirement from the IAS. A topper in her batch, Sudha was initially posted to her home state of Punjab and then moved to Kerala after her marriage to her batchmate, present home secretary Gopal Pillai....

“She was thrown in the garbage dump outside the village for dogs that ate her. Her only fault — she was the fourth girl born in a poor family,” said Harshinder Kaur, paediatric doctor here, recalling the first time she witnessed discrimination against female infants in Punjab's rural side. “Over a decade ago, I couldn't save that infant and ever since I try to speak for the girls who never...