-PTI   The centre is examining the proposed scheme for direct disbursement of food subsidies in cash, instead of foodgrains under the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS), as demanded by some states. The final contours of the scheme will be worked out in consultation with concerned agencies like the ministry of finance (department of expenditure) and planning commission, food and consumer affairs minister K. V. Thomas has said. The governments of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana...

The rural development ministry has proposed several changes in the rural job guarantee programme to ensure timely payment of wages and eradicate graft at a time when the Congress party-led ruling alliance has come under fire for poor governance and its failure to tackle corruption. The ministry has listed nine challenges to the proper functioning of the programme and proposed possible modifications in a note. The challenges include ensuring demand-driven legal...

Putting an end to the last several years of squabbling between the NDA government in Bihar and the UPA government at the Centre, Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh has decided to stop awarding any new work to central government’s agencies under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) in the state. “In future no further work under PMGSY will be assigned to any central agency in Bihar, except the works already...

Amidst much indignation over the need for more transparency to fight corruption, the state government has ordered to keep the Special Police Establishment (SPE) of the Lokayukta and Economic Offences Wing (EOW) out of the purview of the Right to Information Act, 2005, raising suspicion over the motive behind the action. The General Administration Department issued a notification on August 25. RTI activists and civil society groups allege that the government...

In covering Anna, TV seems to have shed its critical faculties “Corruption,” I remarked the other day on a television channel, “takes more than one form.” We were talking about—what else?—the latest incremental progression in the Anna Hazare saga. “Everyone talks of money corruption, but what about the other kind—‘Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely’? And who has any kind of power now? Only two entities: Anna Hazare and television.” That’s...