-World Resources Institute India struggles with water scarcity, a problem that poses especially huge implications for the country's food security and rural livelihoods. The country has long-battled its scarcity issues through Watershed Development, a participatory approach to improve water management through afforestation and reforestation, sustainable land management, soil and water conservation, water-harvesting infrastructure, and social interventions. But while watershed development has been employed in communities throughout India, its potential long-term costs...

-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 Business Standard More than half of the households in villages in the country had no drinking water facilities within their homes in 2012 Safe drinking water, which was in the priority list of the manifestos of many political parties, is not within the reach of more than half of the total households in rural areas of India. Besides, the proportion of households not having this facility in urban areas rose slightly...

-The Hindu Tamil Nadu: With the price of LPG gas cylinders going up, the need of the hour is technology that can provide cooking gas - an efficient fuel - that will help the poor, particularly the rural population. Vivekananda Kendra-Natural Resources Development (Vk- Nardep), an NGO in Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu, has come out with a low-volume fixed model Shakthi-Surabhi gas generating plant, aimed at solving the energy problems of the rural...

-The Hindu There is no disparagement of subsidies in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh because those who attack the social welfare policies of the Congress regard them as examples of good governance by a party of the Right Three propositions dominate explanations of the Congress party's rout, the Bharatiya Janata Party's impressive victory and the Aam Aadmi Party's stunning success in Delhi in the recent Assembly elections. One, that there is a strong...