-The Hindu With the era of cheap, bountiful water having been replaced by increasing supply-and-quality constraints, many international investors are beginning to view water as the new oil There is a popular, tongue-in-cheek saying in America - attributed to the writer Mark Twain, who lived through the early phase of the California Water Wars - that "whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over." It highlights the consequences, even if...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: A Global consultancy firm pegged a new level for poverty or empowerment line - at Rs 1,336 per month per person as against the poverty line prescribed by the government at around Rs 870 per month per person. McKinsey, in a report, said the empowerment line determines the level of consumption required for an individual to fulfill his/her basic need for food, energy, housing, drinking water,...

The more things change, the more they remain the same. Probably, this can be said about the ‘Sample Registration System Statistical Report 2012', which carries the latest figures on the social sector by far. The report has provided some interesting trends in child mortality indicators for India and its bigger states during 2012 (see the links below). It says that states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, which have consistently...

-The World Bank About 7.8 million rural people are expected to directly benefit from the project NEW DELHI: The government of India and the World Bank today signed a $500 million credit agreement to improve piped water supply and sanitation services through decentralized delivery systems in the states of Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh. The credit agreement for the Rural Water Supply and sanitation (RWSS) Project for Low Income States was signed...

-Outlook Sikkim has become the only state in the country to achieve more than 100 per cent sanitation in rural and urban households, schools, sanitary complexes and Aanganwadi centres. All 6,10,577 inhabitants in Sikkim have latrines with high sanitation and hygiene standards. The Himalayan state has constructed 98,043 individual household latrines against the target of 87,014 till January, thus achieving 112.67 per cent target under Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan scheme implemented by Union Ministry...