-PTI Ahmedabad: Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel on Sunday appealed to people to focus on building centralised kitchens to feed children instead of constructing temples. "If we can provide quality food to children under the mid-day meal scheme, we can drastically reduce the dropout ratio. I believe that it's better to build kitchens to feed children than building temples," Ms. Patel said, inaugurating a fully-automated kitchen, built by an NGO, The Akshaya...

-The Hindu In 2009-10, 33% of PDS off-take of kerosene diverted for non-household use: report The findings of a confidential report, commissioned by the government and accessed exclusively by The Hindu, have revealed that allocated expenditures of social spending programmes are not reaching intended users and confirm leakages due to corruption. The capitation fees collected by private colleges, on management quota seats in professional courses, last year was around Rs 5,953 crore, the...

-The Hindu Business Line A new approach to financial inclusion using post offices The Government is making intensive efforts to extend access to financial resources such as savings accounts, credit and insurance services to unbanked sections of our society, and the knowledge and freedom to leverage them to one's benefit. The Budget has already mentioned that the Government considers financial inclusion as an important thrust area and the Prime Minister is expected...

-Economic and Political Weekly The union Budget for 2014-15 offers few changes in terms of policy priorities from the United Progressive Alliance government's interim Budget for 2014-15, and it fails to recognise the cracks in the country's Budgetary policies towards the social sectors, which have been worsening over time. Subrat Das (subrat@cbgaindia.org) is with the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability, Delhi. Please click here to download ...

-Economic and Political Weekly   The emphasis on use of digital technologies to bridge the "rural-urban gap" in the union Budget is limited to high talk and minimal allocations. The need for a more comprehensive and peoples' participation-oriented rural action plan should have been the focus while setting sectoral allocations, but that is not to be in this mid-year Budget. Vipul Mudgal (vipulmudgal@gmail.com) heads the Inclusive Media for Change project at the Centre...