-Tehelka To avail the scheme's benefits, a 60-year-old woman in Bahraich was shown to have delivered a baby five times in 10 months, while another who never conceived in 12 years was paid Rs 1,400 as honorarium by the health department. An audit of Janani Suraksha Yojna beneficiaries in Uttar Pradesh has come up with some startling facts. To avail the scheme’s benefits, a 60-year-old woman in Bahraich was shown to have...

-The Hindu Activists attribute trend to improved functioning of service. New official data show that the proportion of Indian households using the Public Distribution System has nearly doubled over seven years. These households are relying more on the PDS and less on open market sources than before. The National Sample Survey Organisation’s report on the ‘Public Distribution System and Other Sources of Household Consumption’ was released last week and looks at findings from...

-The Financial Express The Narendra Modi government has pledged to employ all machinery at its disposal to deal with a second straight year of deficient monsoon. The Narendra Modi government has pledged to employ all machinery at its disposal to deal with a second straight year of deficient monsoon and denied an impending distress in the vulnerable pockets of the country, but a dispassionate look at the ground situation would show there...

-Business Standard Modi's flagship programme faces an uphill task of total irrigation One of the major pre-poll promises of the Narendra Modi government has been his idea of 'per drop more crop', which, in other words, means an extensive network of canals and irrigation facilities for farming. Pradhan Mantri Sinchaee Yojana, initially under the ministry of water resources, got transferred to the department of agriculture and its nomenclature was changed to the Pradhan...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Narendra Modi government has granted the military permission to test missiles targeting four ecologically fragile islands in the Andaman and Nicobar group in the Bay of Bengal, junking a UPA policy derisively known as "birds-over-bombs". The islands are uninhabited or largely uninhabited for most of the year, a source in the defence ministry claimed. Environmental organisations such as the Nature Conservation Foundation, Mysore, claim the islands are home...