A new report on India's housing sector confirms with facts and figures what has been suspected all along: that despite growing demand for affordable housing, supply side responses have been weak and sluggish. This means even though the housing sector can directly impact employment and income generation, and has multiple forward and backward linkages with various industries, it needs innovative ideas, pro-poor thinking and policy stimulus. (See link below for...

-Down to Earth Over 30 per cent urban slums across India have no toilets or drainage facilities, in spite of funds being made available under JNNURM and other schemes Only 24 per cent of urban slums of across India benefited from Central government welfare schemes such as the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) and Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY) and other schemes run by state governments and local bodies, according to...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Government spending of over Rs 46,000 crore on infrastructure augmentation under UPA's flagship JNNURM scheme seems to have improved key indicators of urban life in India and reached the poorest of poor. The recent National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) data shows that over 90% of slumdwellers feel water drainage, sewerage and garbage collection and disposal have improved. The NSSO also said 24% of slums had benefited...

-The Hindu     ‘It is unconstitutional and infringes on individual's right to privacy' The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued notice to all the States asking for their response to a batch of petitions seeking a declaration that the Aadhaar scheme being implemented is unconstitutional. A Bench comprising Justice B.S. Chauhan and Justice S.A. Bobde had already restrained the Centre from issuing Aadhaar cards to illegal immigrants, and had made it clear that benefits should...

-The Hindu Kochi: The State government's ambitious project for an Aadhaar validation-based public distribution system (PDS) would have to address critical technical issues before it could be rolled out. The system put to trial, which the civil supplies department would like to call a pre-pilot phase, in six ration shops in Thiruvananthapuram more than a month back has thrown up technical challenges, which took the department through a steep learning curve. "Based on...