Even as 2011-12 saw Union ministers going on an unprecedented number of foreign trips, the MEA has refused clearance on several grounds for at least 39 proposed trips by 25 Union ministers since June 2009. Some of them are no longer ministers. All these trips, barring one, fell in the official category. The ministers had proposed to travel to destinations such as the US, UK, France, Italy, Japan, Australia and South Africa,...
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India Serves Up Costly Cocktail of Vaccines by Ranjit Devraj
Ignoring widespread concern over the safety, efficacy and cost of pentavalent vaccines, India’s central health ministry has, this month, approved inclusion of the prophylactic cocktail in the universal immunisation programme in seven of its provinces. Pentavalent vaccine doses, a cocktail of five antigens in a single shot, confers immunity against five paediatric diseases - diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, hepatitis B and haemophilus influenza type b (Hib), with the last one considered particularly...
More »Pak potatoes rescue Indian consumers-Madhvi Sally
AHMEDABAD: With potato prices ruling at Rs 20 a kg in retail in the domestic market, traders from Jammu and Kashmir have started importing potato from the two Line of Control (LOC) trade posts of SRInagar and Poonch. With zero import duty on import at the LOC trade points, Pakistani potato is cheaper than the Indian variety by 20% to 40%. India's potato production is expected to be 33.5-34 million tonne...
More »Monsoon ‘most likely' to be normal, says IMD
-The Hindu The India Meteorological Department announced on Thursday that the coming monsoon would “mostly likely” be normal. The average rainfall would be 99 per cent of the long period average [LPA], with a model error of plus or minus five per cent. There was a 47 per cent probability of the rainfall being between 96 per cent and 104 per cent, 24 per cent probability of its being between 90 and...
More »State lags behind in RTE implementation by V SRIdhar
-The Hindu “Hectic lobbying by private interests in education is responsible for Karnataka being a laggard among Indian States in implementing the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act,” said a senior government official on Thursday. Karnataka and Goa are the only States that are yet to notify rules that will enforce the legislation that guarantees education as a fundamental right to all children aged between six and...
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