-Hindustan Times Indian families are getting smaller and the decline is sharpest among Muslims, religious census data released on Friday said, in what could be signs of rising literacy levels in the community. The report of the census carried out in 2011 was released almost a year after the government revealed religion-wise population figures from the same year. The latest data said the country’s average family size in 2011 was 4.45 members, down...

-The Hindu Meerut: The National Commission for Women (NCW) has written to Aligarh Muslim University about alleged discrimination against girls in the university, asking for an explanation. Last week The Hindu had reported that some professional UG courses apart, women were barred from enrolling in undergraduate courses in the main campus of AMU. Instead, they went to the Women’s college, which has very limited resources Chairperson’s letter In a letter to the AMU Vice-Chancellor,...

-The Hindu Poor in rural areas seem disinclined to seek employment under the scheme; low wages and delay in payment are cited as reasons Hyderabad: Despite a severe drought in 2015-16, many of the poor in rural areas of Telangana, except in a couple of districts, seemed to be disinclined to seek employment under the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). Low wages and delay in its payment apart from various other...

-The Hindu Business Line Affected states to undertake construction of farm ponds, adopt micro-irrigation New Delhi: The Centre has asked drought-affected States to prepare action plans on a weekly basis to tide over challenges such as shortage and scarcity of drinking water, promote conservation efforts and prudent usage of existing water resources. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his recent meetings with the Chief Ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat,...

-The Hindu Land should be given back if the project does not take off: SC New Delhi: Even as several prominent private builders have come under suspicion for delayed completion of housing projects, the Supreme Court has declared land a “scarce natural resource” and forbidden the government from using its powers of compulsory land acquisition to strip poor farmers of their livelihood only to transfer such land to private builders to feed...