-IANS For a woman, a toilet is more important than a mobile phone, but men don't understand that, feels Anita Narre. She is the 20-year-old tribal whose rebellion not only ensured a toilet in her marital home but ushered in a sanitation revolution in a backward region of Madhya Pradesh. Last year in May, she had left her in-laws house in Ratanpur village of Betul district after barely two days of marriage...

Women farmers suffer gross bias a global meet will look to change this Nearly half of the agricultural work is handled by women in developing countries and India is no exception. Yet, strategies for the development of agriculture are directed primarily at men. Barely five per cent of the extension efforts and resources are targeted at farm women. This failing, predictably, costs a good amount owing to loss of a part...

-The Telegraph A group of eminent individuals has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asking him to initiate a “truly inclusive process of deliberation” to help formulate a rational public policy on nuclear power and genetically modified (GM) crops. Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer, a former Supreme Court judge, and 16 others, including former scientists and administrators, have also questioned Singh’s remarks to a US journal last month suggesting that foreign non-government organisations...

The Bill governing the unique identity project is unlikely to be introduced in the budget session of parliament, as the Planning Commission needs more time to finalise its revised version.  The Unique Identity Authority of India (UIDAI) Bill, which aims to give legal status to the collection of biometric data and issue of unique identification numbers to all resident Indians, was rejected by a parliamentary committee last year.  "There are many issues...

-Reuters The Congress party trailed in fourth place as vote counting neared its end in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday, a bitter election blow to Rahul Gandhi who had staked his political future on reviving his party's fortunes in the state. Gandhi, scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty that ruled India for most of its 65 years of independence, had campaigned tirelessly to revive his party in the politically crucial state where it has...