The move is being planned with a view to ensuring that the benefits provided by the government reach the beneficiaries and the process remains transparent.
Bedi's order however drew flak from All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam legislature wing leader A Anbalagan, who told reporters that Bedi was treading the path of 'autocracy' by issuing such directives.
In the three months leading up to the Assembly elections, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's government distributed over 1.4 million tonnes (MT) of wheat, 0.95 MT of rice, 0.10 MT of chana (gram), 101.9 million litres of soybean oil and 100,000 tonnes of salt as free ration. This was part of the Covid relief package, officials said.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday hit back at Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi for questioning his developmental claims and manner of implementing social welfare works.
After Raj Babbar's comment -- that a hearty meal in Mumbai can be bought for Rs 12 -- another Congress leader on Thursday claimed that just Rs 5 was sufficient for a meal in Delhi.
India could gain four times over by winding up dysfunctional subsidies.
The Cabinet held a detailed discussion regarding the five guarantees and its implementation, and has arrived at decisions, Siddaramaiah who headed the meeting told reporters.
The recommendation was for imposing a cess of Rs 60 a year for families above the poverty line and Rs 25 for families below the poverty line, its report said.\n\n
Food security for all was a poll promise from the ruling Congress party before this year's general elections.
Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said his prime focus is to uplift the lot of 70 crore-strong working class engaged in the country's unorganised sector.
A programme that endeavours to graduate the poorest people could have seminal implications for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government.
Mr Modi should be conscious that it was his choice to slash the number of tax-payers from 60 million to 15 million, notes T N Ninan.
Recent IMF forecast said China's growth is expected to slow down.
The earlier forecast expected to see 654 million working Indians overall by the fiscal year ending 2022.
"The new class of 70 crore people, who are above the poverty line but below the level of middle class, has been created in the last ten years and it includes security guards, taxi drivers etc," Gandhi said at a rally in Deoli area of Tonk district.
The Indian Council of Medical Research is conducting three different studies to ascertain the facts regarding rising cases of cardiac arrest after the pandemic, Mandaviya said in response to a question in the Lok Sabha.
Hitting the campaign trail in Assam for the first time this election, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on Saturday lambasted the Bharatiya Janata Party as a "party that divides the people and thinks through only one person."
Amid controversy over the Gujarat government's poverty figures, the Congress on Tuesday took a jibe at the Narendra Modi-led government, questioning if poor people were only migrating to that state.
A nationwide socio-economic and caste census to identify people living below poverty line (BPL) was on Wednesday flagged off from Shankhola, a remote tribal hamlet in Tripura West district.
With the possibility of a midterm poll looming large, the government has announced a slew of populist schemes.
The government on Friday decided to allocate five million tonnes of additional wheat and rice for distribution through ration shops to BPL families, giving them some relief from high food inflation.
Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Alhluwalia has said that a person who can spend Rs 32 a day in urban India -- and Rs 26 a day in rural India -- is not poor and that he is above the poverty line.
Government said on Thursday it is working on a scheme to provide health insurance to the poor, besides offering life and disability cover to one earning member of each economically weaker family.
The loan will fund institutional reforms to better manage the state's water supply, modernise irrigation schemes covering about 670,000 hectares of farmland, and support groundwater management.\n
The announcement was made in advertisements published by the state's information and public relations department in various newspapers on Saturday.
The situation raises concerns about whether the promised freebies will once again push the state into a revenue deficit.
There's an entire gurdwara dedicated to immigration. People present tiny airliner models here in the hope that Waheguru will soon give them a ticket, passport and visa to leave, reveals Shekhar Gupta.
Chhattisgarh, popularly known as the rice bowl of central India, is witnessing politics over the foodgrain with ruling the Bharatiya Janata Party and main opposition the Congress trying to attract voters through it.
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The government on Tuesday announced a host of measures to tame inflation, which had soared to a five-month high of 6.01 per cent in May.
A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Justice (CJI) Sharad Arvind Bobde said that a larger bench will decide the pleas filed by 35 petitioners challenging Centre's decision.
'The sense of Constitutional propriety and political morality seems to be vanishing fast.' 'There are many things in today's politics of governance which Manmohan Singh would have never dreamt of saying or doing.'
In a relief to pharma majors, the Delhi high court today held as "illegal and unsustainable" the Centre's decision to put a ceiling on the price of condoms, including the luxury variety.
Opposition members in the Lok Sabha on Monday blamed the Bharatiya Janata Party-led central government's policies for the price rise and accused it of ignoring the plight of common people, saying kitchens will soon "see a lockdown" if the Centre does not take corrective measures.
According to government's estimates, there are around 110 million APL families in the country, who get 11-25 kg of foodgrain a month.
India's 100 top billionaires have seen their fortunes increase by Rs 12,97,822 crore since March last year when the Covid-19 pandemic hit the country and this amount is enough to give 13.8 crore poorest Indians a cheque for Rs 94,045 each.
'If because of El Nino, the monsoon is affected adversely in the current year, naturally it will affect income projections and consequently Budget numbers.'
Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh said whenever BJP came to power, prices of essential commodities saw a fall.
"There has been a 0.05 percentage points decline in the share of allocation for child budget to the Union Budget from 2.35 per cent (2022-23 BE) to 2.30 per cent (2023-24 BE).
Implementing the Food Ordinance is the bigger challenge and there are many provisions of the National Food Security Bill which need to be expanded and strengthened.
While the rich are buying expensive luxury vehicles in Patna, the poor continue to suffer. The pandemic, discovers M I Khan, has cast new light on the stark economic divide in the capital city of Bihar, India's poorest state.
