-The Times of India NEW DELHI: In what could be a wake-up call for the Centre to fix weaknesses in the Swachh Bharat initiative, nearly 71% respondents in an online poll conducted by a social media group feel cleanliness in their cities and towns has not improved much in the past one year and want a greater municipal-citizen connect. The online poll on "local circles", which has over 3 lakh participants, provides...

-The Indian Express It requires a far wider spectrum of interventions than mere clinical management. The latest edition of the Global Nutrition Report 2015 by the International Food Policy Research Institute, released on Tuesday, brings back the concerns over malnutrition into sharp focus. In July, the government of India, after much avoidable controversy, released malnutrition (used synonymously as undernutrition) figures from the Rapid Survey on Children (RSoC) data that was collected...

-Down to Earth Communities are coming together in Jharkhand to create vigilance mechanisms to enforce food entitlement programmes Five-year-old Lalita and Kundan used to spend most of their day under a banyan tree in Pandanberha village in Deogarh district, Jharkhand. There was no anganwadi (child day care centre) or a playschool for more than 90 children in the village. There were also 14 pregnant and six lactating mothers who were deprived...

-Frontline As rural Karnataka reels under an unprecedented wave of suicides by farmers, the State administration looks on, unwilling to address the reasons that have rendered rural livelihoods fragile. DEATH stalks rural Karnataka. In the 41 days between July 1 and August 10, as many as 245 farmers committed suicide, an average of six a day; since April 1, 284 farmers have taken their lives. As a bewildered State government gropes...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Overall, the south has done best, with 39 among the top 100, followed by 27 from the east, 15 from the west, 12 from the north and 7 from the Northeast. Of the 27 state capitals surveyed, 15 have made it to the top 100 while five have ranked below 300. Bangalore leads the list of capitals, while Patna comes last at 429. Among the other major eastern...