-Rediff.com    Even while the UPA Government is pushing for two more flagship programmes of food for all and medicines to all, its first flagship programme of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (Nrega) is losing steam. More than 40 per cent of the Rs 40,000-crore (Rs 400 billion) budget sanctioned for it during 2011-12 remained unspent until December, prompting the Finance Ministry to propose a reduced budget for it in...

The Bill governing the unique identity project is unlikely to be introduced in the budget session of parliament, as the Planning Commission needs more time to finalise its revised version.  The Unique Identity Authority of India (UIDAI) Bill, which aims to give legal status to the collection of biometric data and issue of unique identification numbers to all resident Indians, was rejected by a parliamentary committee last year.  "There are many issues...

India’s decision-makers seem to find it difficult to see that there are children in the country. Being unable to see them, they are unable to perceive that they are hungry. In an age when we are able to use euphemisms like ‘under-nutrition’, this is perhaps not surprising. But it is disgraceful none the less.   This country has a large population of children. Fortyone per cent of its total numbers. The national...

“Huge subsidy on chemical fertilisers unmindful, useless” Small and marginal farmers have raised the demand for special allocation for organic farming and ecological fertilisation in the forthcoming budget, which finance minister Pranab Mukherjee will present on March 16. According to them, chemical fertilisers, the subsidy for which is likely to touch Rs 1 lakh crore in 2011-12,  are not benefitting the soil and are burdening them with high-cost cultivation instead. “The government...

-Governance Now Govt's flagship programmes remain poorly publicised because ministries issue direct advts, bypass DAVP, says I&B min Why the government does not launch a sustained media campaign to let the people take notice of its flagship and other socio-economic programmes? Information and Broadcasting minister Ambika Soni at the receiving end of the Congress Party repeatedly asking this question has tried to put the blame on the ministries issuing direct advertisements bypassing...