The return of Drinking Water and Sanitation portfolio under Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh’s wing meant that he is now in charge of three departments which he could have distributed among the three Ministers of State under him. Instead of assigning departments to each one of them, Ramesh, on the other hand, tried to keep all his three MoSs — Sisir Adhikari, Pradeep Jain and Agatha Sangma — happy by...
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Behind UP doctors’ killings, multi-crore health fraud by Teena Thacker
Lucknow, New Delhi : In April this year, Babu Singh Kushwaha resigned as Uttar Pradesh’s family welfare minister, taking moral responsibility for the scam involving misappropriation of National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) funds in the office of Lucknow’s Chief Medical Officer (CMO) — a racket that was exposed after the murder of incumbent B P Singh. The money involved was a few crores and the men arrested were a former CMO,...
More »PPP projects out of RTI, CIC knocks on PM door
With the government serving a severe blow to transparency in the Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects worth one trillion rupees the Central Information Commission has decided to seek Prime Minister’s Manmohan Singh’s intervention. “We will be writing to the Prime Minister that there should not be a blanket ban on making RTI applicable to PPP projects,” said an Information Commissioner, following a decision at the commission’s last meeting. The CIC wanted the...
More »Karnataka and Posco officials meet this week
BangaloreThe Karnataka government is set to engage South Korean steel maker Posco in discussions early this week over its proposed steel plant in the state that has now been stalled. The process of acquiring 3,382 acre for the plant in Karnataka's Gadag district had been halted by Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa last week under pressure from protests by farmers unwilling to sell their land and religious seers. The government will watch...
More »Demand to do away with private ration dealers by Shiv Sahay Singh
kolkata : At a time when Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is promising a revamp of the public distribution system and “food grains for all”, various right groups and unions working in the PDS sector are pressing for doing away with the system of private dealership of ration shops to stop pilferage of food grains. Representatives of Paschim Banga Khet Majoor Samity, Sramjivi Samnaway Committee, West Bengal Government Employees Union (Nabaparjaya), ICDS...
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