PRIME Minister Manmohan Singh complimented his government on the progress of flagship programmes in his opening statement at the national press conference held recently, but was candid about challenges related to their implementation. UPA’s schemes for the poor have been at the core of the government’s ‘inclusive development’ agenda and were credited with bringing Congress back to power. Yet the government is unable to implement well the Mahatma Gandhi National...

Depletion of ground water in Punjab and elsewhere cannot continue, says Abhijit Sen  ‘…The agriculture sector remained much more devoid of knowledge than any other…' Necessary to increase investment in research due to scarcity of natural resources At a time when agriculture growth is projected at 5 per cent for 2010-11 based on predictions of a normal monsoon, Planning Commission member Abhijit Sen says that “unless the sector delivers incomes to farmers,...

The world needs to act quickly to counter the erosion of species. The task is particularly important for India, one of the 12 mega-biodiversity centres.  May 22 marked the International Day for Biological Diversity. It commemorates the adoption of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) that day in 1992. As of December 2009, exactly 192 countries and the European Commission were signatories to it. This year has been declared the...

For long, villagers have been at the wrong ends of justice being unaware of the functioning of courts and also sent on a merry-go-round while trying to procure a document -- be it a ration card, birth or castecertificate -- from panchayat or block offices. No more, for the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) is forging ahead with its plan to set up legal aid clinics (LACs) of permanent nature...

All 10 fingerprints, an iris scan and a photograph of the person will be used for unique identification (UID) of individuals, the cabinet committee on UID decided on Tuesday, giving its in-principle clearance to guidelines for setting up the UID database. In a billion-plus population, a mix of biometric and photographic record is considered necessary to ensure fidelity of information collected in the project. With UID intended to help identify...