-The Hindu The Planning Commission needed to be returned to its first purposes, to its transparent and audacious planning for an India progressing without old enervations and new injustices to prosperity. Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. The 18th century nursery rhyme, its original probably a riddle, is loved for the one image it invokes - a great fall. The picture of a dumpy egg, of a being...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: India's poorest and socially underprivileged people seem to have benefited the least from a set of government programmes launched over the past decade to reduce personal expenses on health care, research suggests. A team of health economists has found that the financial burden of health care on India's poorest 20 per cent, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Muslims has outpaced that on the richest 20 per cent and...

-The Hindu Dehradun: The Uttarakhand government on Saturday introduced a food security scheme on the pattern of the National Food Security Act This was decided at the Cabinet meeting. The scheme will cater to the Below poverty line and Above Poverty Line families across the State. According to the norms set by the Centre, the State was ineligible for the implementation of the Act. Chief Minister's media in charge Surendra Agarwal said: "The...

-The Hindu Mangalore (Karnataka): The Department of Food and Civil Supplies is going ahead with its initiative to provide clean and safe cooking fuel to the poor. All districts have been told to push for providing liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) connection to below the poverty line (BPL) ration card holders for free. Department Commissioner Harsh Gupta told The Hindu that field-level reports had shown that there was preference for LPG connection. But...

-The Hindu India must devise a demographic policy to separately meet the requirements of the young, middle-aged and elderly The Census data released recently show that unemployment in the country, especially among the youth, is very high, averaging nearly 20 per cent for the age group of 15-24 years. In some States like Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, the unemployment rate is above 25 per...