Half of the country's population still defecates in the open even after 60 years of independence, the Planning Commission has admitted.  Faced with the harsh reality of open defecation by a vast majority, affecting the dignity of women and girls the most, the plan panel is revamping its strategy and is set to raise spending on government programme on sanitation and drinking water.  "Around 60 crore people defecate in the open," plan...

Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee took on the food ministry and publicly backed UIDAI chairman Nandan Nilekani's proposal to set up a new independent agency manned by professionals to computerise the public distribution system (PDS) as part of the reforms agenda and use the Aadhaar number as a base for the changes. Mukherjee was speaking at the meeting of state agriculture and food ministers in Delhi on Wednesday. TOI had earlier reported how...

-PTI   In its Budget wish-list, the Agriculture Ministry has demanded lowering of interest rate on crop loans to 3% for those farmers who pay in time, from the existing 4%. According to sources, the ministry has suggested an additional 1% interest subvention (subsidy) on short-term crop loans of up to Rs 3 lakh to farmers who pay their dues on time. Other farmers get crop loans at seven% interest rate. The 2012-13 Budget...

On September 18, Bimola Rai’s world was reduced to rubble. A student of Class III in Bop village in Chungthang block of North District in Sikkim, a Himalayan border state, she was left traumatized when a devastating earthquake of 6.9 magnitude on the Richter scale, flattened her home and school building, located at an altitude of 5,500 feet. Today, Bimola joins 26 other children of her village to walk the four...

-The Hindu   The services will enable transfer, application procedures to be brought to one's door Last Christmas Eve, 35 people in a remote village of Jharkhand received a unique present. They became the first Indians to Access their Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme bank accounts on their doorstep, having had their identities authenticated through their Aadhaar numbers. They are among the earliest beneficiaries of the next phase of the ambitious —...