A new United Nations report shows for the first time how poor health is linked to poverty in cities and calls on policymakers to identify those that need the most help and target measures to improve their well-being. The report, entitled “Hidden Cities: unmasking and overcoming health inequities in urban settings,” was launched today in Kobe, Japan, where leaders from governments, academia, media and non-governmental organizations have been meeting for the...

Unique features of the public wage programme turn it into a magnet for women More women than men work under the national programme that guarantees employment to rural people. In the current fiscal till October, women availed of more than 50 per cent of employment created under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). Their participation has been growing since the inception of the Act in 2006. This is...

Farmers at Tappal in Aligarh are regrouping themselves to launch an agitation in support of their demand of increase in the rate of compensation for land acquisition to construct a Township along the Yamuna Expressway. These farmers are those whose land has not been acquired as yet. They are demanding rates equal to Noida for their land. On the other hand, farmer leaders alleged arm-twisting by the police and district...

Noted Gandhian and economist L C Jain passed away on Sunday afternoon at the age of 85 after a courageous battle against cancer. L C Jain — organizer, commentator, activist — was born in 1925, the child of India's first freedom movement. He spent more than six decades of his life as an impassioned crusader for what Gandhi called India's second freedom struggle. Jain was known as a fierce opponent of...

In the first week of September, two things happened in western Uttar Pradesh. The first is that a Township that was supposed to be constructed in Aligarh district as part of the Yamuna Expressway project was scrapped. The second was that the UP government announced a revised compensation scheme for the acquisition of land. And now, more than two months later, that bears fruit: the Township is back on, and...