Bihar is set to become the first state in the country to issue health cards to 3.4 crore children in the age group of 0-14 years. Besides offering OPD facilities and free medicines, the health card, which will be vaild for five years, will also facilitate specialised medical treatment in premier hospitals like AIIMS, PGIMER Chandigarh and SGPGI Lucknow. While some states already have health card schemes for school-going children in...

Protesting against the states land acquisition programme, farmers from nine villages near the IMT, decided on Sunday that they would organize a mass demonstration near the Parliament house in New Delhi on the March 2. More than a thousand people from over 50 villages of the nearby region are expected to participate in the demonstration. The controversial land acquisition issue has already been forwarded to the chief minister of state,...

President Pratiba Patil today said the Centre is consulting state governments on the proposed National Food Security Act (NFSA), which will give the poor a legal entitlement to subsidised foodgrains. “The states are being consulted as the success of the programme (NFSA) hinges critically on their commitment to reforms in the public distribution system (PDS),” Ms. Patil said in her address to Parliament to mark the beginning of the Budget Session. The...

Continued poor performance of some key infrastructure sectors cause for concern As India is on the path of achieving 8.5 per cent economic growth, aiming to exceed the 9 per cent growth mark next fiscal, the biggest worrying factor that could derail this horse power of growth and play spoilsport in the “growth story” of the UPA II government is the poor state of infrastructure and its tardy pace of development...

Even four years after the Sachar Committee Report revealed that Muslims were one of the most economically backward and socially disadvantaged communities, nothing much has been done to address the development deficits of this community. The Constitution of the republic of free India was crafted in troubled but idealistic times. The Indian people were still reeling from Partition bloodshed and the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, in the dark shadows of politics...