The word ‘Mitanin’ was derived from a Chhattisgarhi custom, where a ‘mitanin’ is a girl bonded ceremoniously in her childhood to another girl as a lifelong friend IT IS quite common for tractors in rural India to haul all kinds of unusual cargo. Even then, a late night emergency shuttle, from a small home in Narayanpaal village in the backward Bastar district of Chhattisgarh, to ferry a pregnant woman in...

Aruna Roy, the prominent political and social activist who spearheaded the campaign to institute the Right to Information Act in the 1990s, is an ardent critic of the anti-people and exclusionary policies of the first and the second United Progressive Alliance governments. A recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for community leadership in 2000, she heads the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathana (a trade union of workers and peasants) in Rajasamand, Rajasthan,...

Sustained improvement in disease control programmes, specially tuberculosis, and perceptible improvement in rural health care are the highlights of the UPA-II's report card in the health sector. In the 'Report to the People' released here today by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the government said, during 2009-10, more than 36,000 village health and sanitation committees were set up, over 1,300 facility-based Rogi Kalyan Samitis were formed and over 53,000 accredited social...

PRIME Minister Manmohan Singh complimented his government on the progress of flagship programmes in his opening statement at the national press conference held recently, but was candid about challenges related to their implementation. UPA’s schemes for the poor have been at the core of the government’s ‘inclusive development’ agenda and were credited with bringing Congress back to power. Yet the government is unable to implement well the Mahatma Gandhi National...

Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh on the occasion of completion of one year of the UPA Government in its second term said on Monday that the flagship programmes launched by his government are progressing well. "I will briefly highlight some of the important steps we have taken over the past year and also the pressing challenges that confront the nation,' Dr. Singh said during his opening remarks at the national...