-The Hindu Startling facts emerge from census; Maharashtra tops the list The practice of manual scavenging, officially banned since decades in India, continues with impunity in several States. The latest Socio-Economic Caste Census data released on July 3 reveals that 1, 80, 657 households are engaged in this degrading work for a livelihood. Maharashtra, with 63,713, tops the list with the largest number of manual scavenger households, followed by Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh,...

-The Hindu Urban planning that involves the people and alternative service providers gives far better results than top-down efforts from the government, finds an IIT-M study In Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, the responsibility of managing and maintaining a set of more than 160 community toilets was handed over by the Tiruchirapalli City Corporation to a federation of women self-help groups. A post-programme field survey of 803 households revealed that the community participation had...

-Reuters Bibek Debroy, an Indian economist and member of a key government panel which formulates policy on social issues slammed the United Nations’ new development goals on Tuesday, saying that having so many goals and targets would drive governments “nuts”. World leaders are due to adopt a set of new development objectives in September, to replace eight expiring U.N. Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These will include objectives like ending poverty, reducing child...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: Often when there is a heavy traffic jam, cabbie Surya Prasad (name changed) turns to a friendly passenger, hands over a blank post card and requests him to write a few words in English addressed to his children residing back home in Khaspur village, near Patna. Even in today's era dominated by cell phones and email, millions of Indians continue to rely on postal services to reach...

-Livemint.com All future allocations to poverty alleviation schemes will be based on Socio Economic and Caste Census findings New Delhi: The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government on Friday signalled a radical regime change in its spending on entitlements. The government released provisional data from the first Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) in seven decades and declared that it will form the basis for all future allocations under poverty alleviation programmes funded by...