-The Economic Times All public data-from that on glacier meltdowns to monsoon charts to benami land--will be freely available at the click of a mouse with the launch of a national data portal next month. Modeled on US chief information officer Vivek Kundra's Data.gov.us project, the science and technology ministry's portal-- data.gov.in--aims to democratize data, and make the government more "open". "We plan to launch data.gov.in by next month. Once the National...
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Behind the global scourge of child labour by Kailash Satyarthi
Its elimination is an international obligation, but there is a long way to go to meet the goal While governments and civil society commemorate the World Day Against Child Labour on June 12, over 20 crore children are still engaged as child labourers. More than half of them face the worst forms of child labour. Though India has the dubious distinction of having the largest number of child labourers, this...
More »India’s public distribution system faulty: World Bank
-News One Though India’s social sector spending is higher than many other developing countries, one of its flagship welfare programs — the public distribution system (PDS) — is fraught with leakages, a World Bank report said Wednesday. The PDS scheme, which consumes around one percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) and covers upto 25 percent of the poor households, has had limited success, as only 41 percent of the...
More »Do Natural Disasters deserve more attention than man-made one’s? by Prasanth Menon
While, the threats of a nuclear fall-out, borne out of a tragedy that happened in the Fakushima Nuke Plant in Japan, started a debate about the positives and negatives of nuclear energy. The media completely ignored the protests and the cries that were being carried out (in fact, for the last 10 to 15 years) in Northern Kerala as well as Southern Karnataka to ban the Pesticide Endosulfan. Perhaps, after the...
More »Medha moots Development Planning Act for “no or minimum displacement” by Gargi Parsai
Even as Narmada Bachao Andolan leader Medha Patkar on Thursday demanded repeal of the Land Acquisition Act, 1984, the All-India Kisan Sabha urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to call a special session of Parliament to discuss the issue. Ms. Patkar, who was arrested at Parsaul village on Thursday and later released, said that instead of an amended Act, there should be a comprehensive Development Planning Act under which development should only...
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