-Livemint.com The government should put greater emphasis on behaviour change than construction of toilets In 2014, more than half of India’s population still practised open defecation. Prime Minister Narendra Modi set his government the goal of making the country open defecation-free in five years, by the 150th anniversary of M.K. Gandhi’s birthday in 2019, by launching the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (SBA). Three years later, we are more than halfway into that period,...

-The Times of India BENGALURU: You needn't visit the sub-registrar's office to get your marriage registered. Forget all the hassles, and apply and print your CERTificate online -all from your home. Karnataka's stamps and registration department has decided to launch a dedicated portal, on the lines of property registration, to minimize visits to the government office. "We are streamlining the process of getting marriage CERTificates online. Till now, you could apply online and...

-The Asian Age On the one hand, there are states like Kerala and Goa which have a low burden of undernutrition. India has won significant battles against malnutrition. Unlike a few decades ago, instances of severe malnutrition such as kwashiorkor and marasmus are now rare. Latest figures from the National Family Health Survey revealed that there has been a ten percentage point decline in stunting from about 48 per cent in 2005-06...

-Scroll.in A scheme to give India’s poor people free power connections has been in operation since 2005. But the capacity to provide 24x7 power is still a dream. On Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the “Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana” or the Saubhagya scheme to provide electricity connections to Indians who do not have them. “The government will connect each house, whether it is in village, a city or...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: An NGO has described an alleged fake encounter and accused Haryana police of a spurt in extra-judicial killings of Muslim youths in the Nuh and Faridabad districts. Citizens Against Hate has made the allegation in a recently published fact-finding report titled "Lynching Without End", which mainly looks at vigilante violence against minorities. The report cites 11 alleged fake encounters, involving 15 deaths, in Nuh alone, according to a statement...