Delhi is an anxious city this monsoon season, struggling to meet an onerous deadline. Preparations continue at a feverish pace for the 19th Commonwealth Games (CWG), which will bear down on the Indian metropolis October 3-14, along with some 8,500 athletes from the 71 states and territories that were once part of the British Empire. Around-the-clock construction and spells of heavy monsoon rain have turned Delhi into a swirl of mud...

In a first step of its kind, nine private companies have been shortlisted by the Union rural development ministry to develop infrastructure in the rural areas and maintain it for a period of 10 years. The project, envisioned as part of former President A P J Abdul Kalam’s pet scheme, Provision of Urban Amenities in Rural Areas (PURA), will see these nine private players undertaking pilot projects in January next year...

THE definition of poverty has been at the core of discussions and commitments at the international level to address it and, by a logical conclusion, to eradicate it. This intent is the basis for the lofty Millennium Development Goals adopted by the UN member-states and international organisations at the beginning of this century. Now, 10 years later, the UN Summit on MDGs in New York last month was meant to...

In yet another embarrassment for the Chandigarh Administration, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has directed it to “put on hold the acquisition of land for IT Park, Phase-III”. In a communication sent to the Administration on Monday evening, the MHA has minced no words in directing the Administration to stop the acquisition process and take prior permission from the ministry for acquisition of proposed projects in the peripheral area...

The Maharashtra Government has imposed fines of over Rs 26 lakh collectively on primary information officers for ignoring and delaying answers to queries received under the Right to Information Act. On completion of five years of implementation of RTI, as per the figures revealed by state’s Chief Information Commissioner Suresh Joshi on Monday, in 2009, 347 officers were fined Rs 26,57,691 for ignoring the queries and delaying information. The fine has...