-The Hindu   More than 11.02 lakh households given works Tamil Nadu topped the list of States that provided jobs to rural households for 100 days as per the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) at the end of the second quarter of the financial year 2011-12. More than 11.02 lakh households benefited from the scheme in Tamil Nadu. Statistics Andhra Pradesh came second by providing jobs to 9.65 lakh households and Uttar Pradesh...

The Union government’s plan to recapitalize 40 of the 82 regional rural banks (RRBs) is at risk as some of the state governments are either delaying or refusing to pay their share of money. Due to this, the government has only been able to recapitalize around 12 RRBs, with the stakeholders collectively infusing Rs. 300 crore. The cabinet had approved the Rs. 2,200 crore recapitalization plan of 40 RRBs in February,...

While Indian psychiatrists have rejected a World Health Organisation (WHO) study portraying India as the depression capital of the world, they say it has indirectly drawn attention to an acute shortage of trained personnel and facilities to deal with mental illness. "Declaring India as having the highest rate of major depression in the world is an aberration in interpretation," Dr. Roy Abraham Kallivayalil, secretary-general of the World Association of Social Psychiatry,...

-The Indian Express   Roughly three decades after Tamil Nadu devised the mid-day meal scheme for schoolchildren, the Jayalalithaa government is working on extending it to breakfast as well. Like neighbouring Puducherry, the state will ensure that schoolchildren are provided a healthy start to the day. Some private and corporation schools have already experimented with the idea. Tamil Nadu’s welfare schemes have been remarkably efficient because of political determination, imaginative policy-making and implementation,...

The Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council has asked HRD ministry to examine bringing pre-school learning under the purview of Right to Education Act to "ensure continuity in the child's education". In real terms, bringing pre-school learning into RTE would mean decreasing the age limit from six years to four years. Government would have to amend the RTE Act and change the norms of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, the flagship programme, that...