-Outlook Rural Development Ministry could spend only Rs 55,000 crore out of the budget estimate of Rs 75,000 crore for its various flagship programmes in the current fiscal and Minister Jairam Ramesh says he owns responsibility for it. Despite the poor spending, Finance Minister P Chidambaram today allocated Rs 80,000 crore to the key social sector Ministry in this year's budget. Ramesh blamed "serious administrative weaknesses in the poorest states of India"-- Bihar,...

-First Post With 10 state assembly elections this year and the general election in the next, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) faces possibly its sternest challenge since it returned to power in 2009. It goes without saying that the forthcoming electoral tests have been compounded by the perceptibly declining political standing of the ruling alliance caused by multiple scams and economic stagnation. In addition, defeats in a series of elections ranging...

-Live Mint In an interview, India’s food minister says the Bill is about making the Right to Food a legal entitlement Prospects for the National Food Security (NFS) Bill—United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s dream legislation—haven’t looked better. Food minister K.V. Thomas, in charge of fine-tuning the contours of the Bill, is confident of steering it through Parliament during the budget session. In an interview, Thomas said the Bill isn’t merely...

-The Hindu Chhattisgarh is all set to allow private diagnostic centres at public health facilities within three months. Critics are appalled by the idea of business space for private players in public health facilities while supporters feel it will improve the pallid health care infrastructure in the State. The architect of the new model, J.P. Mishra, chief of the State Health Resource Centre — the State Health Department’s technical assistance body...

-The Hindu China’s most renowned agricultural scientist has described as “120 per cent fake” claims that farmers in Bihar harvested a world record 22.4 tonnes of rice from one hectare of land without using herbicides or genetically modified (GM) seeds last year. A national icon, Yuan Longping is known here as “the father of hybrid rice” for developing varieties that enabled China to transform its grain output. His rice varieties were...