India's high burden of anaemia has now got the Prime Minister's Office seriously concerned. With the latest National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3) finding the prevalence of anaemia to be 80% in children, 70% in pregnant women and 24% in adult men, the PMO called a meeting on Thursday with top officials from the Planning Commission, ministries of health and women and child development, the National Institute of Nutrition and independent experts...

In an attempt to deal with the use of black money in elections, the maximum poll expenditure for parliamentary constituencies has been increased to Rs 40 lakh and to Rs 16 lakh for assembly constituencies. Expenditure limit varies according to the size of states. On Wednesday, law ministry issued a notification amending the Conduct of Election Rules. At present, in big states, the upper spending limit in parliamentary constituency is Rs...

Eight cases of diversion of funds released under Mahatma Gandhi NREGA were reported last year, including three from Uttar Pradesh, the Lok Sabha was informed today. Two cases from Manipur and one each from jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh were reported, Minister of State for Rural Development Pradeep Jain said in a written reply. Replying to another question about the details of irregularities committed under the scheme and action taken, Jain said...

When it came to power in May 2009, some ministers in the UPA government had set themselves a deadline of 100 days to show results. But one year and nine-odd months later, the report card of its flagship programmes in nine states hit by Maoism is dismal. Much of the money allocated has gone unspent, according to the “performance study” the Planning Commission conducted in these states and submitted to...

Haryana has distributed Rs 9,834.73 crore from March 2005 to March 2010 to the farmers for the land acquired by Haryana Urban Development Authority (16,362 acre), Haryana State Infrastructure and Industrial Development Corporation (19,868 acre), Public Works Department - Building and Roads (386 acre) and Irrigation department (6,618 acre). Talking to media, Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda said, the average compensation comes to be Rs 22,74,000 per acre that...