-The Hindustan Times Every second woman in rural India walked an average 173 kilometres - the distance between Delhi and Vrindavan - to fetch potable water in 2012, making her trek 25 kilometres longer than what it was in 2008-09. Data released this week by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), a ministry of statistics and programme implementation wing, gives two broad hints when compared with previous studies: economic...

-The Telegraph Jaipur: In the space of a month, a remote Rajasthan village has taken a tiny step towards fulfilling the Prime Minister's dream of a Swachh Bharat, free of open defecation and open drains. But Bhanwari village in Rajasthan's Pali district, about 328km from Jaipur, has done it without the Centre's help and fast enough to beat the rains. Between May and June this year, Bhanwari has transformed itself into one of...

-The Hindu Business Line Corruption in NREGA works has steadily declined in recent years. There are important lessons here that need to be extended to other domains One neglected aspect of the debate on the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) relates to the process aspects of the programme. In the process of planning works, organising employment, paying wages or fighting corruption, many valuable activities take place: Gram Sabhas are held, workers...

-The Financial Express Though food inflation could be lower than last year's 11.1%, fruit and vegetable prices remain the pressure points. Concerns over monsoon have diminished a lot in recent weeks because of four positive developments. First, rainfall deficiency has reduced sharply from a century-high of 45% for June to 17% as on August 18. Second, sowing has caught up significantly from 40% below normal in mid-July to just 2.3% below normal...

-The Times of India Mitu Kumari, in charge of a government school in Patahin, a village on the outskirts of Muzaffarpur, Bihar, has a measured enthusiasm for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement that toilets for girls will be built in schools that still don't have this basic facility. For her 146 students and three women teachers, absence of toilets is an intolerable problem. "I have written to everybody, from the village mukhia...