-Outlook   The Arunachal RTI Activists Forum (ARTIAF) has called a 24-hour Itanagar bandh on July 29 demanding resignation of Health Minister Atum Welly and Chief Information Commissioner Y D Thongchi. The health minister recently landed in a controversy after his son and daughter allegedly submitted fake educational certificates for government jobs while his three aides were arrested on the charge of plotting to murder an RTI activist who brought the matter...

Proposes centralised PDS network, model PDS software for transparency. As the government works out the modalities for implementing direct Transfer of subsidies on cooking gas, fertilisers and kerosene, a task force headed by Nandan Nilekani has proposed a three-stage model for direct Transfer of food subsidy. The rollout of direct Transfer of food subsidy will be contingent on a modern and computerised public distribution system (PDS), for which Nilekani has suggested a...

Some interesting findings emerging on the Public Distribution System. A recent study of 100 villages in nine states says that leakages in the Public Distribution System are being plugged and diversion of grain has reduced, except in Bihar. The bad news, the researchers say, is that there are serious deficiencies in the BPL list. The study was conducted in 106 randomly selected villages in two districts each of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh,...

Developing countries will now have to battle IP issues related to new agricultural technologies at WIPO instead of WTO The World Intellectual Property Organization has announced clearly that it intends to play a role—and considering the clout WIPO enjoys it implies a significant part—in promoting intellectual property (IP) in agriculture to enhance productivity. The UN body stepped into this touchy arena with a seminar at its Geneva headquarters that has gone...

In an effort to counterLeft wing extremism, the Central government is looking at ways to rework its development programmes and its delivery mechanism in the affected districts. The decision to go back to the drawing board on the delivery of keyrural development programmes -- like the rural employment guarantee scheme and roads programme etc --- comes after Rural Development MinisterJairam Ramesh traveled to five Left-wing extremism (LWE) affected districts -...