-Down to Earth   14.5 per cent decline in employment under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, says country's chief auditor The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India recently released a report on Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS), highlighting the irregularities committed by the Uttar Pradesh Government in implementing the scheme. CAG has pointed out that non-adherence to rules and regulations and inefficient financial management and monitoring of the...

-Outlook New Delhi: To ensure success of its new food laws, government today allowed construction of intermediary godowns under employment guarantee scheme MGNREGA and has allocated Rs 450 crore for creating 15 lakh tonne of storage capacity across the country by March-end. The decision has been taken in view of slow progress in the construction of intermediary godowns by state governments at a time when the government is in a hurry to...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: In a worrying trend, condom use in India has dropped by 38% in six years - from 2.6 crore in 2006-07 to 1.6 crore in 2010-11. Health ministry data shows that 21 of the 28 states, including Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, have registered a decline in the use of this contraceptive, setting off alarms among policymakers. Health experts said with India's population is tipped to...

-The Hindu The prohibition imposed on bicycle riding and use of non-motorised transport in 174 designated roads of Kolkata during most hours of the workday or round-the-clock is undemocratic, environmentally retrograde and out of sync with modern urban transport planning. At a time when global cities are thinking beyond the car and popularising shared bicycle systems, the law enforcement machinery in West Bengal's capital has chosen to go the opposite...

-The Hindu JENVAC is the first vaccine to be manufactured in the public-private partnership mode India on Friday launched its first indigenous vaccine to protect children from Japanese encephalitis. Until now, the country has been importing the vaccine from China. The Vero cell-derived purified inactivated JE vaccine-JENVAC, which received manufacturing and marketing approvals from the Drug Controller General of India, is the first vaccine to be manufactured in the public-private partnership mode between...