-PTI UNITED NATIONS: The head of a UN agency mandated to defend freedom of expression has called on Indian authorities to investigate the mysterious death of TV reporter Akshay Singh while covering the Vyapam scam in Madhya Pradesh, saying crimes against journalists must not go unpunished. Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) Irina Bokova expressed condolences to Singh's family, friends and colleagues and urged the authorities to...
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States can pass own land acquisition laws if Centre can't: Jaitley
-Hindustan Times With the key Land Acquisition bill stalled by political differences with the Opposition, the Centre may change tack and get states to enact their own land legislation, enabling it to push along the economic reform process. Finance minister Arun Jaitley said on Wednesday that the states that wanted speedy development could take the lead in framing such laws with the Centre's backing, while Prime Minister Narendra Modi said “political considerations”...
More »The quality of air you breathe in Chennai is worse than in Delhi -Rukmini S
-The Hindu Chennai had the highest proportion of ‘severe’ days based on AQI Official air quality data for the first half of this year shows that while Delhi does indeed face high levels of air pollution, Kanpur, Varanasi and Chennai are worse off. Averaging across the ten pollution monitoring stations in the city, a little over a quarter of the days from January to June this year in Delhi had an Air Quality...
More »Social Safety nets require more public funding
The nation can be proud of running some of the world's largest programmes on social safety nets, says the latest report by World Bank. However, public spending on safety nets is still low in comparison to neighbouring countries Bangladesh and Pakistan. India tops the list of 136 countries for running the world's largest School feeding programme i.e. the Mid Day Meal Scheme (MDMS), and also the biggest public works programme i.e....
More »Insurance scheme for farming sector on the anvil: Jaitley
-PTI Amritsar: "In the coming time, we have plans to spend Rs 50,000 crore on farming and irrigation sectors in the country." Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday said the Centre was planning to spend Rs 50,000 crore on the farming and irrigation sector and plans were also afoot to roll out an insurance scheme exclusively for the farming sector to compensate for crop loss. Admitting that the condition of farmers is...
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