In an attempt to deal with the use of black money in elections, the maximum poll expenditure for parliamentary constituencies has been increased to Rs 40 lakh and to Rs 16 lakh for assembly constituencies. Expenditure limit varies according to the size of states. On Wednesday, law ministry issued a notification amending the Conduct of Election Rules. At present, in big states, the upper spending limit in parliamentary constituency is Rs...

About one crore girls vanish every year through foeticide or other forms of killing, Governor of Uttarakhand Margaret Alva said here on Wednesday. She was addressing a seminar on women's rights here organised by Congress leader Janet D Souza's non-governemental organisation ‘Parivartan.' “We call it the disappearing sex. One crore girls die every year or are not allowed [to be born],” Ms. Alva said. On the issue of ‘honour killings,' she...

Haryana has distributed Rs 9,834.73 crore from March 2005 to March 2010 to the farmers for the land acquired by Haryana Urban Development Authority (16,362 acre), Haryana State Infrastructure and Industrial Development Corporation (19,868 acre), Public Works Department - Building and Roads (386 acre) and Irrigation department (6,618 acre). Talking to media, Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda said, the average compensation comes to be Rs 22,74,000 per acre that...

 In a major development, the Punjab government has finalised a policy for grant of protection to RTI activists. A statement to this effect was made by a law officer appearing on behalf of the government today during the resumed hearing of a public interest litigation filed by Advocate H C Arora, State President of RTI Activists Federation, Punjab. In his PIL, the petitioner had sought directions to Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh Administration...

Four mega-programmes of the government, meant to tackle big-ticket issues like child nutrition, school education, health and employment, appear to be faltering not because funds are short but because adequate manpower has not been put in place. This is the surprising finding of a new study done by the Center for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA), a New Delhi based think tank. The four mega-programs are Integrated Child Development Services...