-The Indian Express Raipur: The Chhattisgarh anti-corruption bureau (ACB), which is probing irregularities in supply of rice for the public distribution system (PDS) in the state, is scrutinising an alleged balance sheet which lists, among others, senior IAS officers and personal assistants to the food minister and chief secretary as beneficiaries of illegal commissions. The five-page balance sheet, recovered by the ACB from the office of Girish Sharma, personal assistant to...

-PTI The scheme can have a negative impact on prices, productivity: FICCI-KPMG New Delhi: After the Prime Minister's referred to MGNREGA as a "monument to the failure of the UPA regime", comes a report blaming it for creating shortage of farm labour. A Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI)-KMPG report titled ‘Labour in Indian Agriculture: A Growing Challenge', released here on Wednesday, says schemes, such as the Mahatma Gandhi National...

-Economic and Political Weekly Since independence, India's national health policies have been aspirational but the end results have been limited. The National Health Policy 2015, which is in the process of being finalised, should, in place of the earlier "broadband" approach, adopt a "narrow focus" on primary healthcare through the National Rural Health Mission. The latter has focused on primary healthcare and has shown visible results. A slew of suggestions as...

Following the recommendations of the Shanta Kumar Committee report on restructuring of the Food Corporation of India (FCI), there are signs that the Central Government is in a hurry to replace the Public Distribution System (PDS) with cash transfers. The Government's intention has been revealed in two official letters (one dated 10 February 2015 and another dated 11 February 2015) that were sent from the Joint Secretary at Department of...

-PTI New Delhi: A "callous approach" and a tendency to "unnecessarily" label documents as "secret or classified" is at the root of espionage scandals of the kind that surfaced last week, former bureaucrats have said and sought greater disclosure instead. "There have been government instructions on dealing with sensitive and classified information. There are standard operating procedures, too. In this incident, it seems someone at some level has been callous," former cabinet...