-Down to Earth Money pumped in development schemes in Bihar is giving rise to a new breed of village heads, flush with money and flexing muscles About a year ago killings and a spurt in the purchase of arms and luxury vehicles in extremely backward villages started to bother the Bihar police. It spied and found that mukhiyas, or village heads, had multiplied their assets beyond imagination. It took the police six...

-Economic and Political Weekly The financial implications of the National Food Security Bill, which has now become law, are going to be huge. This analysis points out that one needs to take into account not only the cost of the food subsidy but also the costs of setting up or running new institutions and bureaucracies, and the costs that are likely to arise if there are political pressures to protect the...

-Outlook Shimla: Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh today launched Rajiv Gandhi Ann Yojana under the Food Security Scheme in the state. Of the state's 68 lakh population, about 37 lakh would be benefited by the scheme, Singh said after handing over ration bags to 104-year-old Mast Ram and Vidya Devi (70) of Sunni area of the district at a function at Ridge maidan here. Beneficiaries under the scheme would get three kgs...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: India will seek changes to international copyright regulations so that students and researchers can procure photocopies of expensive books without having to pay royalties, a senior government source said. Come December, he said, the Union human resource development ministry will ask the World Intellectual Property Organisation (Wipo) to relax its norms that protect authors' and publishers' commercial rights over their books. The ministry will suggest at the next general...

-The Pioneer Forget about doling out mandatory unemployment allowance under the Mahatama Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), majority of the Congress-ruled States in the country are yet to notify unemployment allowance rules under the UPA's flagship rural job scheme launched in 2007. The rules mandate the States to pay the daily allowance to a registered worker if he is not provided a job within 15 days of the receipt...