Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal today said a Group of Ministers on Coal will meet within a week to try and iron out the vexed issue of "go" and 'no-go' areas in coal blocks. "The Group of Ministers will meet in the next three-four days or within a week to deliberate on issues like 'go' and 'no-go', among others," Jaiswal told reporters on the sidelines of an Assocham event here. Last year, the...

The government has a plan to reach welfare to the poor without wasting money. It wants to put hard cash in their hands instead of spending on welfare programmes. To begin with, it wants to end the public distribution system of food grain and give money directly to the people. Its logic: the new system of cash transfer will plug leakages and save an enormous amount of money. But is it...

It is tragic that the same government that gives huge corporate concessions and loses money in corruption is fighting over minimum wages. As India's — and by some reckoning the world's — largest rights-based rural safety net programme completes five years, here is a reality check. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) has become the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). But in a monumental affront to the...

Senior United Nations officials today called for urgent steps to rein in the rising prices for basic farm produce, petroleum and raw industrial materials whose volatility hits the world’s poorest people the hardest.     “Such volatility has huge negative impacts on vulnerable groups, such as low-income households in developing countries, for whom food expenditure can account for up to 80 per cent of household budgets,” UN Conference on Trade and Development...

Tipped as the flagship programme of the second United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, the proposed Food Security Bill is ready, union minister K.V. Thomas said Saturday. Thomas, who recently was given independent charge of the consumer affairs, food and public distribution ministry, told reporters here that his department was ready with the path-breaking Food Security Bill. 'Early next month, it will be taken up for discussion by the National Advisory Committee and...