-The Business Standard   To submit report on use of children in anti-Posco agitation soon. The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has urged the Orissa government to take immediate steps to withdraw police forces who have been given shelter in schools in the Posco project site area. The commission also appealed to the state Chief Secretary B K Patnaik, secretary (women & child development) Arti Ahuja and the anti-Posco outfit...

The mid-term appraisal of the rural development programmes during the ongoing 11th Five-Year Plan points out several holes in the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in Uttar Pradesh. This not only reaffirms the public perception of poor performance of UP, but also sets aside the defence put up against scathing criticism of her government by chief minister Mayawati time and again. The development has come...

After she failed in her grade ten examinations, Aarti Naik would've ended up being a domestic help like most of her classmates but chose to fight the situation she was in. Today she teaches schoolgirls from her neighbourhood for free lest they fail in their examinations and in life. Sometime in June 2003, when she received her State Secondary Certificate (SSC) examination mark sheet, Aarti Naik was crestfallen. She had failed...

The impasse over land acquisition for the Posco project cast a shadow on Rath Yatra festivities in Dhinkia gram panchayat area in Jagatsinghpur district on Sunday. The number of villagers thronging the annual car festival at the Jagannath temple at Gadakujang had reduced drastically, pointing to the uncertainty prevailing among the people in the area. "The residents of Dhinkia, Gobindapur, Patana, Trilochanpur and other villages are now oscillating between despair...

-IANS   Hundreds of thousands of people in Bihar are living in fear after heavy rains caused several rivers to swell and flood over 100 villages, officials said Monday. The Bagmati river breached its embankment in Muzaffarpur district, while the rising waters in the Gandak and Kosi rivers are also posing a serious threat. "Bagmati river breached its embankment near Basghatta village in Muzaffarpur, creating panic in dozens of villages as the flood...