-The Economic Times Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has taken charge of the UPA's initiatives to directly transfer welfare benefits and subsidies into individual beneficiaries' bank accounts - a system that would plug the rampant leakages of funds earmarked for the poor via schemes such as NREGA on which the government spends over 3,00,000 crore annually. A new ministerial co-ordination committee under the PM would now fast-track the architecture for cash transfers while...

-The Times of India With finance minister P Chidambaram recently declaring at a full Planning Commission meeting that cash transfers may replace subsidies for food, fertilizers and fuel by the end of the 12th five-year Plan, the controversial proposal has again taken centre stage. A recently concluded PILot project which substituted ration cards with Rs 1,000 transferred monthly to families throws light on the pros and cons of the scheme. The study...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Car users can't be penalized for not switching to public transport system, Delhi high court observed on Monday while analyzing the effectiveness of the BRT corridor. "The policy shouldn't be such that you will be punished for doing something... that's not the way to encourage people to use public transport and discourage use of private vehicles," a division bench comprising Justice Pradeep Nandrajog and Justice Manmohan...

-The Times of India INDORE: Thousands of passengers on the Delhi-Mumbai trunk route are risking their lives daily by travelling on trains barrelling down the 120-year-old Bhairavgarh bridge in Ratlam, declared "distressed" eight years ago. Railway engineers had certified the bridge unsafe in 2003-04 and sought immediate repairs for it to sustain the pressure of the 50-odd trains pounding down every day, including the Rajdhani, August Kranti, Golden Temple, Duronto, and Sampark...

-Outlook The Delhi University today assured the high court here that it would ensure punctuality among its teachers and install biometric attendance register system in its various colleges. "The university is committed to implementation of the biometric system, said the Delhi University (DU) registrar in an affidavit to the Delhi High Court bench of Acting Chief Justice A K Sikri and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw. Accepting DU's assurance, the bench today disposed of...