Participating in the second meeting of the Chief Ministers' Working Group on Food and Public Distribution here, Chattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh on Wednesday asked the Centre to make the public distribution system (PDS) universal in the Left-Wing Extremism-affected districts, as well as, all Scheduled Tribe and Scheduled Caste families living in tribal areas to do away with “errors of exclusion.” Mr. Singh is a member of the working group, set...

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was right when he maintained in his meeting with the media that the judiciary should not stray into the realm of policy formulation for food management. But the same plea cannot apply to the media which brought the issue of rotting of foodgrain to public attention and virtually put the government in the dock for criminal wastage of grains in its warehouses. Policy deficiencies are clearly...

Former Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Gegong Apang has been remanded to judicial custody for two days by a special sessions court in connection with the multi-crore PDS scam case. Apang, who ruled the state for 23 years in two phases as Congress leader, was arrested on August 24 for his alleged involvement in the scam. He was remanded in police custody for 14 days which expired yesterday. The additional judge of the...

The DMK government has failed to prevent smuggling of food items meant for public distribution, AIADMK general secretary Jayalalithaa alleged on Wednesday. “Though the government has issued a stringent warning against smugglers, not a day passes without smuggling of ration items. The warning remains on paper and no action has been taken against those who are behind the illegal act,” she said in a statement here. Recalling the collision involving a truck...

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday virtually ticked off the Supreme Court, saying that it "should not get into policy formation". The trigger for this rebuke was the apex court's anger at grains rotting in FCI and government godowns, and its direction to agriculture minister Sharad Pawar to distribute grains for free to families living below the poverty line. Talking to a group of editors on Monday morning, Singh said...