After Right to Food, the Supreme Court has taken up the issue of Right to Education to ensure that every government-run school in India has requisite  number of teachers, potable water, toilets, safe building and other such facilities for students. A bench headed by justice Dalveer Bhandari on Tuesday ordered all the district collectors and magistrates to submit  a report in this regard within four weeks to the chief secretary/ administrator...

The forthcoming budget is unlikely to propose a steep hike in allocation of funds for the government's flagship rural welfare scheme despite a sharp increase in the wage rates under it. The finance ministry is likely to allocate only 42,000-45,000 crore for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), a government official told ET. The scheme will have an opening balance of about 10,000 crore, the official said. This precludes...

Highlighting the strength of the agriculture sector in India, Union Food Minister K.V. Thomas has said that the national food production was high despite drought and floods which have affected about 100 districts of the nation. Briefing reporters on the sidelines of a meeting, Thomas maintained food production was going according to the expectations of the Central Government. "100 districts in the country are under severe drought. There is flood in Orissa,...

The Planning Commission today said the annual agriculture growth target for the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17) would be set at 4% as it was in the previous two plans. The Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia also said, "During the current five year plan (2007-12) we are likely to achieve average farm growth of about 3.5%, which would be little lower than targeted 4%." Ahluwalia who was conferred a doctorate...

As food prices rose for the seventh month in a row in January, contributing to recent popular unrest in the Middle East and a spike in commodities purchases by developing countries last week, some analysts are quick to make comparisons to the dry years of 2007-2008. But others warn against panic and oversimplified predictions of an impending food crisis, which contribute to price volatility. "It is important to underline – and we've...