A team of auditors from the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India will travel on select trains originating and terminating at Sealdah and Howrah stations to ascertain whether their introduction was at all necessary. Nearly all these trains were introduced by Mamata Banerjee during her tenure as railway minister between 2009 and May 2011. According to sources in the CAG, this exercise is part of a thematic review on 'Introduction of...

Tuberculosis re-emerges as a major threat as new drug-resistant strains develop because of mismanagement of the disease. At the beginning of the year, doctors at Mumbai’s P.D. Hinduja National Hospital and Medical Research Centre reported that they had 12 patients infected with TDR-TB, or totally drug-resistant tuberculosis, a condition in which the TB bacilli is resistant to all first- and second-line drugs used in the conventional treatment of the disease. Panic...

ASHAs will continue to bear the burden of the government's rural health mission as a new order lists more incentive-based services. On May 31, a Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare order listed additional incentivised duties for accredited social health activists, or ASHAs, but was silent on the issue of regularisation of their employment. ASHAs, who bridge the gap between the rural population and the nearest health care outlets under...

-The Indian Express In keeping with Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council's social welfare approach of rights-based entitlement, the government plans to rename the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (LARR) legislation as the Right to Compensation, Resettlement, Rehabilitation and Transparency in Land Acquisition Act (RTCRRTLA). The Department of Land Resources under Jairam Ramesh has suggested moving an official amendment to rename the Bill that was introduced in Parliament last September. The draft note suggests...

-The Times of India An ongoing exercise at the Planning Commission lays bare Bihar's ambitious growth agenda. Its total plan outlay for the 12th five-year plan (2012-17) at Rs 2.69 lakh crore is more than what a fast growing state like Gujarat has spent in the last 50 years. Bihar's projected expenditure in the next five years will be the third highest among all states, next only to Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. The...