700 million Indians have cell phones, but 638 million still don’t have access to proper sanitation. At this year’s South Asian Conference on Sanitation, social solutions to the problem were discussed, including “naming and shaming” and the CLTS programme which gets villagers to map the open areas where they defecate There can hardly be a bigger taboo than sanitation when it comes to the government, bureaucracy or even the people...

Even as India celebrates an impressive jump in the literacy figures in the past decade, a staggering eight million children are still out of school. Worse, 21 per cent of the teachers at the primary level are without adequate qualification and as many as 9 per cent schools have only the one teacher. Releasing the achievements in the first year of implementation of The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory...

The All-India Adivasi Mahasabha, on the first day of its three-day long conference here on Monday at the Talkatora Indoor Stadium, stressed the need to unite the diverse tribal communities from across the country to gain a voice in Delhi, as a starting point to controlling their own destinies – and their land, water and forests. In his speech, Meghalaya Governor R.S. Moosahary told delegates: “Let us unite all tribal groups...

It is a little known fact that in roughly a fifth of our country’s land area, a different legal system operates. In some of these places, if you are caught with certain items, it is up to you to prove that you are innocent of a crime — and whether you go to jail depends on whether a government official kept proper records years earlier. If you are using some...

A state Congress leaders' delegation that called on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh accused Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi of siphoning off funds meant for beneficiaries of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme. The delegation of Congress MLAs, MPs and others, headed by Leader of Opposition Shaktisinh Gohil and state party president Arjun Modhwadia, also told the prime minister that the state government had failed to implement various schemes announced...