-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Lack of awareness in rural areas regarding the enhanced definition of disability in census 2011 could have led to severe undercounting of the disabled, the bulk of whom reside in rural India. Rural areas account for almost 70% of the population of people with different kinds of disabilities. Yet the increase in the number of persons with disabilities (PWDs) in the rural areas is barely...

A new report from Right to Sanitation Campaign in India entitled: In Deep Shit paints a gloomy picture about the position of India's sanitation, and simultaneously draws our attention to the case of ‘missing' and ‘dead' toilets. The report has questioned the claims made by the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation (MDWS) that India is making great strides in availing toilets to its rural population through the Nirmal Bharat...

-The Hindu Maharashtra accounts for 23 per cent of total slum population, followed by Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal Just under nine million households, or roughly one-eighth of India's urban population lives in a slum, according to data from the latest round of the National Sample Survey Organisation released on Tuesday. The number is significantly lower than the 14 million slum households identified by the Census in 2011. NSSO, like the Census, counted...

-The Hindu New data on the status of drinking water and sanitation released by the National Sample Survey Organisation on Tuesday indicated a far better state of affairs than that detailed in the 2011 Census. Conducted just a year after the Census, the 69th round of the National Sample Survey found significantly better levels of access to drinking water and toilets. Over 46 per cent of households in rural India and...

-The Business Standard Intrastate inequality can only be corrected through reform of budgetary allocation formulae between districts within states The hoopla surrounding election results in India is reminiscent of nothing so much as a horse race ("...and X romps home the winner!"). The difference is that for the horse and its handlers, the work is done when the race is over. For the winners in the recent round of state elections,...