The electronic post office launched this week has brought the familiar red and grey counters to your drawing room, making tiring trips and queuing up things of the past. The website www.epostoffice.gov.in offers money order service, stamps and e-tracking of registered posts to start with. It creates a virtual post office on computer screens and leads customers to the counters. The decision to launch an electronic post office was part of the...

The new food security schemes point to the capacity of agriculture to produce more when the incentives are right. Supply of cheap foodgrains will trigger demand for other food products, which the farm sector will have to meet. The many rural development programmes in operation have complex effects on the rural economy. Programmes such as Bharat Nirman are expected to improve connectivity of markets, provide access to more efficient sources of...

As per reports received from the States participation of women who got employed under Mahatma Gandhi NREGA is 50% during the current year (2010-11) so far which is well above the minimum prescribed under the Act. The participation by women under the Act was 48% each during 2008-09 and 2009-10. Para 6 of Schedule-II of Mahatma Gandhi NREGA provides that priority shall be given to women in such a way...

With India growing faster than almost every other large economy, the government is right to address its long-run challenges. The push for investment in infrastructure is bearing fruit and the expansion of social programmes such as the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) and the Right to Education Act (RTE) is spreading the benefits of growth across the population. But just as improved infrastructure doesn’t eliminate all traffic jams, rapid growth...

Among the many reasons cited for India to proceed ahead with the Unique Identification (UID) project -that it will facilitate delivery of basic services, that it will plug leakages in public expenditure and that it will speed up achievement of targets in social sector schemes -   the most specious is perhaps the claim that it will help India reach her public health Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Despite impressive economic growth in...