Arjun Kumar Sengupta, a developmental economist and Member of the Rajya Sabha, passed away on Sunday evening. He was 73 and is survived by his wife Jayshree Sengupta and daughter Madhura Sengupta who teaches in Canada. He has had a multi-faceted career as a academician, economic policy administrator and a Parliamentarian. “I am deeply grieved to learn about the sad demise of Dr Arjun Kumar Sengupta, Member of Parliament. He will...

After taking on Suresh Kalmadi and Co on the Commonwealth Games, Rajya Sabha MP and former panchayati raj minister Mani Shankar Aiyar has now trained his guns on the UPA government and the Planning Commission for bureaucratising all flagship programmes like the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and the National Rural Health Mission. In a free-wheeling interview with ET, Mr Aiyar said instead of relying on panchayati raj institutions for better...

Manpreet Singh Ayali, chairman of Zila Parishad-cum-District Health Monitoring Planning Committee, has said Rs 12 crore are being spent in this current financial year under the various schemes of National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) to provide better health facilities to the people of rural areas.   Ayali was addressing a meeting of District Level Health Monitoring Planning Committee at Zila Parishad Complex on Friday. Ayali further said that the birth rate has...

Eighty-five-year old Zahur Shah from the 250-year-old Badarpur Khadar village said he was searching for the cancer camp some time back when a passer-by told him he was standing in front of it. “Agar mujhe padna aata toh mere itne ghante usko dhoondne mein nahi lagte. Padai likhai ke bina insaan janwar jaisa hai,” says the father of nine children, and this family of three generations has never been to School. This...

VISHAL, the son of a farm labourer in the west Indian state of Maharashtra, is almost four. He should weigh around 16kg (35lb). But scooping him up from the floor costs his nursery teacher, a frail woman in a faded sari, little effort. She slips Vishal’s scrawny legs through two holes cut in the corners of a cloth sack, which she hooks to a weighing scale. The needle stops at...