The government has asked states including Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Bihar to set up grain procuring infrastructure to increase lifting from the farmers so that requirement for the proposed food security law could be met. The Food Corporation of India, chairman and managing director, Siraj Hussain said state-level procuring agencies can help in arranging sufficient credit facilities for carrying out grain purchase activities without depending on the Central...

Liquor baron Ponty Chadha’s mercurial rise is all ‘Maya’ A reclusive liquor baron may seem like an anomaly in these never-ending good times. But Gurdeep Singh Chadha—better known by the moniker Ponty Chadha—fits the bill. Often called “Mayawati’s financier”, the 57-year-old Ponty has been making large (if silent) waves for the political patronage he enjoys in Uttar Pradesh. Any bottle of liquor sold in India’s most populous state goes through his...

SHEILA DEVI, 54, of Nangal Kalan village in Haryana’s Sonepat district cannot comprehend how Taneja Developers and Infrastructure Ltd (TDI) procured her two-acre plot in 2004, ‘signed’ with thumb impressions of her husband Narender Singh, who died in 2002 and his brother Bhupender, who went missing the next year. The documents are obviously forged. But how did a farmers’ family get cheated in Haryana, where the land acquisition policy formed in...

Warns of contempt action in case of any default The Supreme Court has directed the States of Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Jammu and Kashmir, Meghalaya, Maharashtra, Mizoram, Nagaland, Punjab, Sikkim and Tamil Nadu and the Union Territories of Andaman and Nicobar, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu and Lakshadweep to implement the various schemes formulated for the welfare of the workers without any further delay. A Bench of Chief Justice...

The worst fears about education in Punjab have come true. Nearly 9.5% children of school-going age have never been inside a classroom, while about 38% people in villages are illiterate. A new survey on rural education has blown the lid off SAD-BJP government's claim on improvement on this front. Punjab State Farmer's Commission has compiled a report and submitted it to the chief secretary, Punjab. "The report has indicated that the...