It was a Rashomon moment for the readers of the First Common Review Mission report when they heard activists complaining about the pension system of Rajasthan during a recent press conference held in the capital. The First Common Review Mission (CRM) report, which was prepared during the month of May this year by a team of 32 experts had observed that pension related payments under the National Social Assistance Programmes (NSAP)...

-The Hindu While the economy’s revival is still a work in progress, higher food prices, especially of pulses, are affecting nutritional intake across India. The government is counting on a good monsoon season to spur growth and cool down the prices of essential food items. Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das said on Thursday that the government’s move to raise the minimum support price for pulses is expected to help push up...

-Livemint.com This preference for spending on religious services than sanitation extends across income and spatial divides Cleanliness is next to godliness—or so we are told. In India, cleanliness actually ranks several notches below godliness on the priority list. A recent report by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) shows that Indians are willing to spend more on religious services than on sanitation, irrespective of spatial and income divide. The survey, findings of which...

-The Hindu As cereal consumption comes down despite higher output, India needs to ramp up production of pulses to meet the nutritional requirements of the population. Since the onset of the Green Revolution in the late 1960s, India has been treading on a path towards self-sufficiency in food. The achievements have remained highly skewed towards wheat and rice on account of technological as well as policy support towards these two crops. With...

-The Indian Express Housing activists say that a heavy reliance on private sector is the prime reason for poor pace of implementation of the PMAY New Delhi: A year after Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) with the stated purpose of constructing two crore houses for the urban poor by 2022—at the rate of 30 lakh houses per year— merely 1,623 houses have been constructed so far. The...