-The Indian Express The UPA has long been planning a shift to direct cash transfers for poor households, with a view to replacing the 3.23 lakh crore worth of unwieldy subsidies currently in place. Last year, the then finance minister Pranab Mukherjee had spoken of the famously inefficient food and fertiliser subsidies, and of a comprehensive overhaul through cash transfers. Now, that plan has been fleshed out further. The prime minister...

-The Indian Express As the 2015 target for achieving millennium development goals adopted in 1990 approaches, the time has come to take stock of various countries’ performances and identify areas that need more attention. The Unicef recently released a report which categorically stated that India will not be able to achieve the goal of an under-five mortality rate (U5MR) of 42 by 2015. The report further stated that only six of...

-The Telegraph More than one in eight registered pesticides, including the controversial endosulfan, endanger people’s reproductive and nervous systems and may cause cancer and congenital deformities, a Supreme Court-appointed expert committee has said. The panel has suggested these pesticides should be phased out over the next two years instead of their existing stocks being immediately incinerated, as the latter process would cost the exchequer Rs 1,189 crore. A public interest litigation moved last...

-NDTV After an NDTV story which showed a Class 6 textbook that says meat-eaters cheat, lie and commit sex crimes, the Central Board for Secondary Education (CBSE) has said that school books used across the country are not monitored for content. "We only recommend books for Class IX onwards. Books are chosen by individual schools. There is no Monitoring of content of school books," CBSE chief Vineet Joshi told NDTV today. He was...

-Outlook Child victims of sexual offences will now get swift and adequate compensation as well as immediate medical care and rehabilitaion with the Government today notifying new rules. As per the new rules under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, state governments shall pay compensation ordered by Special Court within 30 days of receipt court orders, officials said. Special Courts would award compensation to child after taking into account a host...