-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: The government, in a bind over a recent Supreme Court order asking it to desist from linking social welfare schemes with its ambitious unique identity card Aadhaar, on Monday held out an assurance to the top court that no one would be deprived of any social welfare benefits for not holding Aadhaar. The government said while it had initiated the scheme to provide benefit transfers using Aadhaar...

-The Times of India SHIMLA: Nand Lal Sharma was a Class VIII student when 71 bighas of land owned by his family in Bilaspur district of Himachal Pradesh was acquired for the construction of Bhakra dam. Today, Nand Lal, now in his 70s, is heading a movement to ensure the proper settlement of Bhakra dam oustees since the majority of people who gave their land for the "new temple of resurgent...

-Newsclick.in Recent studies have shown that even as India fares better than many developing regions of the world on several indicators of growth and development such as GDP, per capita, Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), literacy, life expectancy, etc., the number of malnourished children in India is significantly high. What explains this paradox? The Union Cabinet recently approved a multi-sectoral nutritional programme proposed by the Ministry of Women and Child Development to reduce...

-The Hindustan Times Mumbai: Indian companies have acquired land more than nine times the size of Delhi on foreign shores, as cultivable land at home is lost to urbanisation, industry and infrastructure projects. Land Matrix, a global land monitoring initiative that tracks land dealings worldwide, placed India among the top 10 countries that have acquired large tracts of land abroad, primarily for agriculture, in Africa and Asia. The country ranks eighth,...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: With the World Heath Organization's (WHO) International Agency for Research on Cancer declaring air pollution as a major cause of cancer, its findings have put the focus on Indian hotspots like Delhi, West Bengal, Maharashtra and Jharkhand which showed high concentration of life-threatening air pollutants. Air quality data of the government's pollution watchdog, Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), for 2010 - the last one in the...