“The best way to solve the problem of surplus foodgrains is to roll out food security law” Opposing the Union Finance and Food & Civil Supply Ministries' proposal for providing foodgrains as part payment of wages under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh holds that the best way to solve the problem of surplus foodgrains is to roll out the food security law...

-IANS Asking civil servants to take bold decisions, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday said the government would not indulge in "witch hunting" against them in the name of fighting corruption.  " ... it should be our endeavour that there is no witch hunting in the name of fighting corruption," the prime minister said while inaugurating the 7th Civil Services Day event here.  "It is our government's commitment to put in place a...

Not a single case has been registered under a 19-year-old law that prohibits hiring of manual scavengers and building dry latrines. The revelations come weeks after the latest census data showed 25 lakh households across the country depend on manual scavengers to remove night soil from latrines. Union social justice minister Mukul Wasnik conceded implementing the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrine (Prohibition) Act, 1993, had been “weak”. “The implementation...

-The United Nations The world must tackle the urgent challenge of ending hunger if it is to ensure a model of development that is sustainable over the long term, the head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Stressed today. “We cannot call development sustainable if we are leaving almost one in every seven people behind, victims of undernourishment,” Director-General José Graziano da Silva told participants at FAO’s biennial regional...

The government is planning to tighten the rules for issuing and renewing driving licences to make the process “fudge proof” after a study showed drivers’ fault accounted for most road accidents in the country. A committee of state transport commissioners and officials from the National Informatics Centre recently came up with suggestions on possible amendments to the rules. The panel, headed by Andhra Pradesh transport commissioner Hiralal Samariya, has submitted its report...