-The Times of India Upset with the Delhi government's proposal for doing away with the public distribution system and instead offer cash, the resident welfare association (RWA) of Jahangirpuri and NGOs have decided to hold a meeting with government officials on June 22 at the Jahangirpuri Ramlila ground. In April this year, the government had started its second pilot project in Jahangirpuri area. The project covered 4,000 households, which would be given...

-The Economic Times His company's software has, over the decades, enabled legions of Indian youth to become computer engineers, and helped the country lay claim to IT superpower status. With luck, his fortune now may help the country achieve something much more basic. The global charity founded on the fortune of software billionaire Bill Gates is joining hands with the Indian government to improve sanitation in rural areas where nearly 60% of...

Over 2000 impoverished Burmese asylum-seekers from across India, camping on the streets of Delhi pleading for refugee status were dealt a double whammy. On Tuesday afternoon, even as a delegation of Burmese met UN officials to sort out their problems, they were forced out of their temporary shelter in Vasant Kunj by police, dumped into buses and rickshaws and told to find their way home. To make matters worse, their...

The proposed criminalisation of consensual sex between youngsters in the 16-18 age group is seen as regressive and in denial of social realities. THE minimum age for consensual sex has been raised from 16 to 18 in the amended Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Bill, 2011, recently approved by the Union Cabinet. If approved by Parliament, this will make sexual activity with a person below 18 a criminal offence,...

For Subaida Bibi and many of her neighbours, the day begins at 4 am. That is when the early risers among this small community of waste pickers in Ghazipur emerge from their jhuggis to begin the slow climb up the Ghazipur landfill, the smouldering heap of garbage on which nearly 600 waste pickers in the area depend on for a living. Though figures vary, it is estimated that more than 50,000...