The awareness of the Centre's ambitious rural job scheme — the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) — varies across different regions of the State and only 56.33 per cent of the households are aware of the scheme. Evaluation of the impact of the processes in the MNREGA in karnataka (2011), conducted by the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bangalore, for the State Government reveals that there have...
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Food ministry seeks delay in ethanol blending plan by Prabha Jagannathan
The food ministry is set to oppose the mandatory 5% ethanol blending programme, fearing diversion of foodgrain for manufacture of ethanol. The ministry has called for the report of the expert panel headed by Planning Commission member Saumitra Chaudhuri in order to "review" the programme. The petroleum ministry was expected to soon send the report to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs for a final decision after factoring in the dissent notes...
More »Lokpal Bill: Civil members to ask for speedy drafting
-PTI Civil society members are expected to make a strong pitch for speeding up the process to draft the Lokpal Bill when they meet the representatives of the government tomorrow. The fourth meeting of the team led by Anna Hazare is expected to ask the ministerial team led by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to call at least three meetings every week to complete the drafting process by the June 30 deadline set...
More »Average infant mortality rate down 30% in past 10 years by Subodh Varma
Recently released data on infant deaths across states in India has thrown up surprising results, leaving health experts puzzled. Average infant mortality rate for the country as a whole stood at 50 in 2009, down by 30% compared to a decade ago. The rate is much higher than developed countries but the pace at which it is declining is encouraging. But the surprises lurk in state level data. Three states -...
More »Do natural disasters deserve more attention than man-made one’s? by Prasanth Menon
While, the threats of a nuclear fall-out, borne out of a tragedy that happened in the Fakushima Nuke Plant in Japan, started a debate about the positives and negatives of nuclear energy. The media completely ignored the protests and the cries that were being carried out (in fact, for the last 10 to 15 years) in Northern Kerala as well as Southern karnataka to ban the Pesticide Endosulfan. Perhaps, after the...
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