-The Hindustan Times India has driven the truck of development - loaded with tar, bricks, glass, concrete...the works - right through its most treasured and fragile green spaces in the last decade. While major cities like Delhi and Mumbai sacrificed green cover for real estate, the country's finest wildlife corridors have been ceded to indiscriminate industrialisation. In the absence of a clear policy to balance development and environment, the Aravallis in Gurgaon,...

-Press Information Bureau (Ministry of Agriculture) The two-day National Conference on Agriculture for Kharif Campaign has come out with detailed strategy for maximising crop production during the coming kharif season. The focus will be on ensuring timely availability of fertilizers and quality seed and also sufficient credit to farmers. Based on inputs from States and the Fertilizer Ministry, it is established that sufficient quantities of fertilizers and seeds are available in...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The government spends Rs 3.65 to deliver Re 1 of food while 57% of subsidized food grains do not reach the intended beneficiaries. These startling findings by the Independent Evaluation Office point to massive corruption and pilferages in the existing public distribution system. The agency's initial findings reveals that close to 36% of food grains are siphoned off in the supply chain, raising a serious question...

-Live Mint The health insurance scheme was expanded to cover a larger number of the poor in June New Delhi: The government has asked the independent evaluation office (IEO) to study the government's health insurance scheme, its director general said on Wednesday. The IEO, announced in 2009, was inaugurated on Wednesday. The cabinet has decided the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (national health insurance scheme) will be evaluated by IEO, director general Ajay Chhibber...

-Deccan Herald New Delhi: The decade-old mid-day meal scheme for primary school children, rolled out with the twin aims of fighting malnutrition and improving attendance by providing cooked food, still appears too little to fight the menace of malnutrition in many states, including Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat. A large number of elementary school children are suffering from "severe" malnutrition in as many as nine states, with the highest figure of...