Participants at a United Nations summit today outlined a 10-year plan to support the world’s most vulnerable countries overcome poverty, calling on the private sector to play a greater role in the fight, urging wealthy nations to step up their aid commitments and demanding the elimination of many trade barriers. The Istanbul Programme of Action to spur development and economic growth was made public at the end of the Fourth UN...

CBI told to submit first report within six months Many States erred in implementing the schemes The Supreme Court on Thursday directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe alleged misuse of the schemes under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in 100 villages in six districts of Orissa. A three-judge Bench of Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia, Justices K.S. Radhakrishnan and Swatanter Kumar gave this direction on a petition...

The Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council has asked the Centre to ensure payment of the statutory minimum wages to domestic workers. In a note sent on May 4 to the government, which is framing a national policy for domestic workers, the council asked it to enshrine the right to pay without gender discrimination as laid down in the Equal Remuneration Act of 1976. Domestic workers were on a par with other workers...

Food minister K.V. Thomas is examining the possibility of bringing in a law to contain the wastage of food at weddings and other social gatherings. Will such a law be feasible, wonders Hemchhaya De The gala British royal wedding might have gripped the world, but are big, fat Indian weddings justified? It’s a poser that the Indian food minister, some senior Congress leaders and former bureaucrats are trying to deal with...

Massive grain procurement to meet the requirements under the proposed National Food Security law could drive out the private sector and have larger implications on the state of the domestic procurement market, a study on food and nutritional security has warned. Apart from impacting exports and cereal price in the open market, rising public procurement will only make it costly to buy, store, transport and distribute grain, the study said, adding...