-The Business Standard Govt suppresses report recommending radical reforms to improve their socio-economic status as it goes against Centre's rapid industrialisation agenda The National Democratic Alliance government at the Centre has suppressed the report of the High-Level Committee on the Status of Tribals. The report presents a scathing analysis of how development activities and strategies in India have increased the socio-economic gulf between tribals and rest of the citizens of India and...

-The Hindu Total fertility rate in 8 States below 2 children per woman Fertility is falling faster than expected in India, and the country is on track to reach replacement levels of fertility as soon as 2020, new official data shows. The 2013 data for the Sample Registration Survey (SRS), conducted by the Registrar General of India, the country's official source of birth and death data, was released on Monday. The SRS shows that...

-The Hindu The programme needs to retain the momentum of a movement than that of a litter-cleaning project "Slum districts... consisted of poorly built houses, a deficiency of ventilation and toilets, unpaved narrow streets, mud, and stomach-turning stenches due to the presence of decaying refuse and sewerage. In such conditions, ill health was observably endemic." This is not a description of Indian cities today (though it may well be), but of Britain around...

-The Indian Express Hardly 58 per cent of rural households in India are engaged in farming activity, which, in turn, contributes not even 60 per cent to their average total monthly incomes. These are the findings of the latest countrywide "Situation Assessment Survey of Agricultural Households" conducted by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) for the 2012-13 crop year from July to June. They refute a common perception regarding agriculture - how it...

-The Times of india Nearly a third of rural households and a quarter of urban ones are indebted according to a survey report released this week. This is understandable with the spread of credit facilities. But the scale of indebtedness revealed is astonishing: between 2002 and 2012, the average amount owed by each family has jumped seven times in cities and more than four times in rural areas. About 22% of urban...