Ahead of a UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) review meeting in New York next week, Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar, a nominated member of the Rajya Sabha, Sunday said that decentralisation of power was the key to fighting poverty and hunger. 'The major lacuna in the strategy for MDG is that it ignores the crucial delivery aspect of poverty and hunger eradication. While most countries in the world, developed and developing,...

Mayavati had better do something quick about the state of schools in Uttar Pradesh if she wants children to spell her name right. An NGO assessing the District Primary Education Programme and Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, a national programme for universalisation of elementary education, asked 16 students of Classes III and IV of a government school in Joar village near Lucknow to write the name of their chief minister in Hindi. Mavit and...

Rs. 3,000 each awarded to 78 persons who had worked at three sites After a long struggle, 78 persons who had worked at three sites in Jharkhand under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, but had not been paid, have secured compensation for their ordeal. Deputy Labour Commissioner Mahendra Murmu awarded Rs. 3,000 per worker at a Labour Court here on Monday. This is seen as a breakthrough for the aggrieved workers,...

Build-up of different types of resistance could make it more difficult to manage the plants using herbicides. Transgenes present in 80 per cent of wild canola found by study Authorities had anticipated the existence of GM “Volunteers” Researchers in the U.S. have found new evidence that genetically modified crop plants can survive and thrive in the wild, possibly for decades. A University of Arkansas team surveyed countryside in North Dakota for canola. Transgenes were...

A law empowering Indians to seek information from government to promote accountability and transparency has brought change to urban India, but has largely left out the country's rural poor, social activists say. The Right to Information (RTI) Act - similar to the Freedom of Information Act in the United States - was enacted almost five years ago and is aimed at providing a practical way for all citizens to access...