Centre delinks access to welfare schemes from poverty line NUMBER of people who can benefit from government’s welfare programmes is going to swell. Currently, the Central government caps the entitlements under most welfare programmes to those below the poverty line, which is as low as Rs 12/day/person for rural areas and Rs 18/day/person for urban areas. State governments have been opposing this mechanism. In future, the ongoing socio-economic and caste census...
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Big cities have worst sex ratios in country
-The Times of India India's towns are worse than its villages when it comes to the child sex ratio (CSR), but its biggest cities are even worse. Against an overall ratio of 914 girls for 1,000 boys in the age group of 0-6 years, the urban ratio is 902 but the combined figure for cities with a population of a million or more is just 898. Look through the data for the...
More »Rights to reject, recall on all-party talks table
-The Hindustan Times The government on Monday said activist Anna Hazare’s demand for the rights to reject and recall elected representatives would be discussed soon at an all-party meeting on electoral reforms. Law minister Salman Khurshid said though chief election commissioner SY Quraishi had said these rights would destabilise the country, the government “will be happy to put it up for all-party consultations.” But he said, “We have a very strong lobby that...
More »Farmers' union threatens six-month farming holiday by Gargi Parsai
The members of Bhartiya Kisan Union on Tuesday threatened to take a six-month holiday every year for 10 years from framing if the government fails to take note of the hardship faced by farmers over rising prices and acquisition of farm land for commercial activity. Rakesh Tikait of Uttar Pradesh said with increasing input costs, farmers were finding it difficult to cultivate round the year. “If the government does not pay...
More »Every eighth urban child in India lives in slum: report by Vinaya Deshpande
Every eighth urban child in India in the age-group of 0-6 years stays in slums, according to ‘Slums in India – A statistical compendium 2011' published by the Union government. “... about 7.6 million children are living in slums in India and they constitute 13.1 per cent of the total child population of the urban areas of the 26 States/ Union Territories reporting slums,” the report compiled by the National Buildings...
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