-Hindustan Times E Sreedharan says he also doesn’t agree that the Indian Railways has made rapid progress. He cites that apart from bio-toilets, there has been no technical upgradation and accident record has not improved either. Having revolutionised the way urban people commute, Elattuvalappil Sreedharan, 86, a retired civil engineer, has taken up the challenge of laying down standards for the metro rail system. In an interview with Ramesh Babu, the ‘Metro...

-CaravanMagazine.in The Chattisgarh government's advertisements for the Vikas Yatra display photographs of the BJP national president, Amit Shah, the party’s state president, Dharamlal Kaushik, and other local party leaders. None of these leaders hold a position falling within the exceptions carved out by the Supreme Court for government advertisements.   In late May, Shiv Kumar Banerjee, the sub-divisional magistrate of Chhattisgarh’s Rajpur area, conducted an inspection of a school premises ahead of...

-PTI New Delhi: The Centre today asked state governments to provide home delivery of highly subsidised foodgrains to the PDS beneficiaries to avoid instances of starvation death. These were among other reforms the state governments have been asked to pursue urgently in order to strengthen the public distribution system (PDS) — also called ration shops. The matter was discussed in detail with state food ministers meeting here in the national capital. “We...

-TheNewsMinute.com Water is a resource that will never run out, they say; but its scarcity has been the undoing of many families in Kadiri, a town in Andhra Pradesh’s Anantapur district. Anantapur district has seen varying degrees of drought for many years now. Barren lands and wilting crops are a common sight in these parts. The sun beats down on you and wears you out, and there is no water in...

-Livemint.com Odisha is a front-runner in women’s land ownership, much of it owing to government policies from the 1980s. But has ownership led to empowerment? Surrounded by sun-drenched paddy fields interspersed with jackfruit and banana trees, Sanakusupadu is a hamlet in Odisha’s tribal-dominated district of Rayagada. Here, almost every married woman owns land. No matter how small the holding, land documents of the 62 households in this village bear the names of the...