Around 22 districts in Rajasthan have been identified as those requiring immediate attention in terms of food security, according to the food security atlas of rural Rajasthan released jointly by the Institute of Human Development and the United Nation's World Food Programme (UNWFP) on Friday. The atlas further mentions the need of immediate, intensive intervention in ten out of these 22 districts to improve food and nutrition security. The atlas...

KEY TRENDS   • Section 105 of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, which provides for excluding 13 Central legislation, including Land Acquisition (Mines) Act 1885, Atomic Energy Act, 1962, Railway Act 1989, National Highways Act 1956 and Metro Railways (Construction of Works) Act, 1978, from its purview, has been amended for payment of compensation with rigours $ • The amendments have now...

Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel is the richest cabinet minister in UPA-II whereas Railway Minister Mamta Banerjee is among the poorest. The Prime Ministers' Office has provided details of assets and liabilities of 77 ministers in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's council, submitted for the first time under the Right to Information Act. The ministers are required to submit details of their assets and liabilities to the Prime Minister's Office every year. Getting...

When noted economist Jean Dreze visited Surguja in Chhattisgarh a decade ago, its utterly non-functional Public Distribution System (PDS) looked like especially “designed to fail.” The National Advisory Committee member has written in a recent article that the ration shop owners illegally sold the grain meant for the poor and “hunger haunted the land.” But that was then. The economist was pleasantly shocked to see the transformation this time. “Ten years...

Packed into what look like two medium-sized suitcases are eight essentials — an iris scanner, a fingerprint machine, a camera, a laptop, a computer screen linked to the laptop, an Internet data card, a pen drive and a printer. Armed with kits like these, Nandan Nilekani and his team at the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) will kickstart one of the most ambitious exercises in recent times — distribution of...