-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The government touted petrol as rich man's fuel to stop subsidy. But a latest survey shows 62% of the fuel flowing into the market is consumed by the aam aadmi's sawari - two-wheelers - while about 2% is being sold loose by people to earn their livelihood in remote villages and coastal areas. The survey, conducted by Nielsen for the oil ministry's think-tank - Petroleum...

-The Economic Times KOLKATA: In the wake of the just-enacted National Food Security Act, the Union Minister for Food and Public Distribution, Prof KV Thomas recently reviewed the operations of Food Corporation of India (FCI), especially from the point of view of its preparedness for implementing the law. Expressing satisfaction after the review, Prof. Thomas said the FCI had been undertaking various steps in the last one year towards increasing the storage...

-Outlook An RTI exposes how the Sikkim govt has blatantly misutilised funds meant for quake relief Whose Money Is It Anyway! Of the Rs 60.45 crore allocated for Construction of roads and bridges, the state government gave only Rs 30 crore Another Rs 52.64 crore was allocated, of which the government again spent only Rs 3 crore On the other hand, the...

Bihar Government's programme of distributing bicycles to school girls may be a modest intervention but is leading to big changes. A new research-based paper, brought out in August 2013, corroborates the success of the programme and testifies that it is leading to improved school enrollment of girls and arresting their dropout rates (See links below to read full paper and earlier studies on the subject).   Based on econometric and statistical models,...

-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...