-Live Mint Why do the central and state govts deliberately undermine the constitutionally created panchayats? The collector of any district in India would be heading 100 to 150 committees related to various development initiatives in the area. Collectors often don't get time to prepare for or preside over the meetings of these committees-imagine what happens to implementation then. On the other hand, the heads of district panchayats and municipalities in the...

-PTI The Uttar Pradesh government has spent 900 per cent above the budget allocated for building school toilets under Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, with nearly 60 per cent of the total Rs 32.25 crore going to just one district. Under the central government scheme, Rs 24,000 per unit was allocated for constructing 1,538 toilets during the five year period from 2007-08 to 2011-12, which comes to Rs 3.69 crore. However, an RTI...

-The World Bank WASHINGTON: The number of people living on less than $1.25 per day has decreased dramatically in the past three decades, from half the citizens in the developing world in 1981 to 21 percent in 2010, despite a 59 percent increase in the developing world population. However, a new analysis of extreme poverty released today by the World Bank shows that there are still 1.2 billion people living in...

-The Indian Express Washington: India accounts for one-third of the world poor, people living on less than USD 1.25 (about Rs 65) per day, a World Bank report on poverty has said. The report said that 1.2 billion people still living in extreme poverty across the world. "The State of the Poor: Where are the Poor and Where are the Poorest?," using data released in the latest World Development Indicators, shows that extreme...

-The Hindu   Books will soon be procured for all the children, says district coordinator of SSA Tiruvallur: Asish Mehra sits in the front row of his class, flipping through his notebook. There is hardly any space between the Oriya letters, as if he is desperately trying to save paper. It is his only notebook, and it turns out Asish is indeed trying to make the paper last. He is one of the many...