-The Tribune Faridkot: The Ministry of Rural Development has communicated to the state that no funds would be released under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme till it fully utilised the first installment With two months left for the financial year to end, none of the 146 blocks in Punjab have fully utilised the MGNREGA funds. Until there is full utilisation of the first installment, which is 60...

-The Hindu The Shanta Kumar Committee's recommendations to unbundle the Food Corporation of India are in tune with U.S.-led demands raised in the World Trade Organization The Shanta Kumar Committee report, released last week, on a range of issues relating to procurement, storage and distribution of food grains is not only deeply flawed in its reading of the situation on food security, but also short on facts. It was prepared under the...

-PTI Kolkata: West Bengal's Nadia district is poised to complete building toilets for all its residents by next March, under a programme which has been shortlisted for the United Nations global award for public service. Nadia district magistrate P B Salim told PTI that 95 percent of the people had already stopped defecating in the open and by this March they would achieve a 100 percent open defecation-free status. His scheme "Sobar...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: Leprosy may have disappeared from the state's health mandate, but there is compelling evidence that the infection is returning to the community. Though officially eliminated from the state ten years ago, last year leprosy infected over 16,400 people, 13% of them children. Also, the state accounted for 13% of the country's new leprosy cases. Statistics also reveal that 57% of the newly detected cases were multibacillary leprosy-an...

-The Hindu India's growth story of the last two decades has had one recurring theme: that the pattern of economic growth is accentuating insecurities. Yet, there continues to be a deep divide over whether the gains from growth ought to be ploughed back to achieve social security for everyone. Social security has come to be linked to job benefits, tying it to one's status as a worker in the formal or...