Direct cash transfers or food coupons should be used by the government to provide services to the poor, says Farzana Afridi, Assistant Professor, Economics and Planning Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi. Afridi, who obtained her PhD in economics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and an MA in economics from the Delhi School of Economics, says that although the Mid Day Meal Programme is having a substantial effect, the...

-The Hindustan Times Environment ministry will set up an expert committee to find out the mining companies, including in coal sector, who have failed to start mining despite getting environment clearances and to strengthen the ministry's monitoring process. The ministry has given environment clearance to 530 million tonnes to coal but operations to mine only 200 million has started. Many companies have failed to start mining despite getting the clearance years ago. There is...

-PTI The CBI has registered five cases in connection with illegal iron ore export scam worth Rs. 2500 crore and carried out searches at 17 locations, including in the premises of associates of jailed mining baron G Janardhan Reddy, on Saturday. Acting on the orders of Supreme Court which asked the agency to probe the scam, the agency registered five cases and a preliminary enquiry against firms and exporters allegedly related...

Between 2009 and February 2011, at least 14 people were charged with sedition in India London: The typical citizen could be forgiven for fearing that the world’s largest democracy is hurtling towards George Orwell’s 1984 rather than 2013. In late August the government’s department of telecommunications, citing the “communal tensions” around Assam, blocked more than 300 individual web addresses, including the Twitter profile pages of some journalists. It also ordered a limit...

-The Times of India PANAJI: Following the adverse report by the Shah commission on illegal mining in Goa, the Union environment and forests minister Jayanthi Natarajan on Wednesday announced the suspension of environment clearances given to all 93 functional mining leases in the state. The orders came a day after TOI's story on how the central government had given illegal clearances to Goa's iron ore mines even under PM Manmohan Singh's watch...