-The Hindu India has registered higher infant and child mortality rates than Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Further the country’s position on the measure of the percentage of underweight and severely underweight children during the period 2006-10 was more than twice than that in the Sub-Saharan African region. This was revealed in the Comptroller and Auditor General of India’s performance audit of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme — Union Ministry of...

-Live Mint Govt reiterates it will crack down hard on tax evaders, defends steps introduced in Finance Bill to check evasion The government on Tuesday reiterated its intention to crack down hard on tax evaders and defended some of the stringent provisions introduced in the Finance Bill last week to check evasion, including granting wider powers of arrest to taxmen and making certain offences non-bailable. Finance minister P. Chidambaram, in his budget speech...

-The Times of India A decade after a CAG audit revealed how a scheme to help infants and young children was failing, a fresh report tabled in Parliament on Tuesday says the number of malnourished children exceeds the 40% mark in 10 states as on March, 2011. The audit of the flagship Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) says 49% children in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar (82%), Haryana (43%), Jharkhand (40%), Odisha (50%), Rajasthan...

-The Hindu Business Line Diversion of funds, lack of buildings, toilets, medicine kit, weighing machines and staff shortage at all levels are plaguing the Government’s flagship Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), says a CAG report tabled in Parliament on Tuesday. The report found that Rs 57.82 crore had been diverted to activities not permitted under the scheme in five of the 13 States during 2009-11. Also, Rs 70.11 crore meant for the...

-PTI State governments have irregularly diverted funds aggregating to Rs 57.82 crore from the central government's flagship Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) to activities not permitted under the programme, a CAG audit has found. In its report on the ICDS for 2012-13, tabled in the Parliament today, the CAG criticised the ministry of Women and Child Development (WCD) for "inadequacy" in monitoring systems under the scheme to combat child malnutrition. The report said...