District-level committees also to scrutinise any instances of ‘paid news' The constitution of an Expenditure Monitoring Division in the Election Commission of India indicates that the ECI is stepping up its efforts to tackle ‘paid news' and other abuses of money power during elections. The 2009 elections, to the Lok Sabha and to some State legislatures, saw a spate of complaints as millions of rupees were spent by powerful political parties...

Farmers in drought hit districts in this unusually heavy rains monsoon season will get a diesel subsidy of Rs 500 per hectare, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar announced here on Friday at the start of the National Conference on Rabi Campaign, even as the Centre awaits bumper crop production for most key Kharif crops including paddy, pulses, coarse cereals and sugarcane. Oilseeds are the only crop where acreage is lower than...

KEY TRENDS   • Maternal Mortality Ratio for India was 370 in 2000, 286 in 2005, 210 in 2010, 158 in 2015 and 145 in 2017. Therefore, the MMRatio for the country decreased by almost 61 percent between 2000 and 2017 *14    • As per the NSS 71st round, among rural females aged 5-29 years, the main reasons for dropping out/ discontinuance were: engagement in domestic activities, not interested in education, financial constraints and marriage. Among rural males aged...

This will speed up payment of wages under employment guarantee scheme In a major step to alleviate delays in wage payments under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday launched an “e-Shakti Financial Inclusion” scheme – the first of its kind in the country. The scheme aims at providing about three crore villagers with ‘e-Shakti' biometric smart cards, with the Central Bank of...

Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) is world’s most extensive primary education programme, but is it working? The grim reality that India’s Right to Education is at best working in terms of quantity of schools, and certainly not in terms of quality of education, was first proved in successive Annual Status of Education Reports (ASER), brought out by education NGO ‘Pratham’ through nationwide ground-level surveys. Now a Planning Commission evaluation report confirms most...