-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The seventh AIIMS-like institute will come up at Rae Bareilly - Congress president Sonia Gandhi's parliamentary constituency - soon. Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad announced this on Thursday while addressing the convocation ceremony at AIIMS, Delhi. Azad said that Land for the new AIIMS project has been acquired already. "We have acquired Land for building AIIMS in Rae Bareilley and tendering process for construction is...

-The Indian Express   The street vending bill goes a long way in securing the livelihood of the urban poor. The Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Bill, passed by Lok Sabha on September 6, 2013, is a Landmark piece of legislation for the urban poor. It is the culmination of the efforts of organisations like the National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI) and the Self...

-PTI The Landmark Food Security Bill, aimed at giving a legal right on highly subsidised foodgrains to 67 per cent of the country's population, on Thursday received the President's nod. "We have received the Presidential assent to the Food Security bill," Food Minister K.V. Thomas told PTI. The law will soon be notified in the Government gazette, after which it will come into effect, he added. The Centre has convened a meeting of...

-PTI NEW DELHI: Flagging the challenge of raising foodgrain production, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today promised all assistance to states for improving agricultural growth. "It's a challenging job to increase production of foodgrains and other crops for the growing population of the country, especially, because agriculture is still dependent on monsoon in large parts of the country," he said, addressing a gathering of farmers, who arrived here as part of a nationwide...

-The Hindu The report of the Comptroller and Auditor General underscoring the blatant violation of conservation laws and Supreme Court orders in the diversion of forests for destructive non-forestry use confirms what former Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said about the system: it's a bit of a joke. The compensatory afforestation mechanism instituted to balance the devastating loss of natural forests has failed abysmally. The CAG's report is proof that India's...