-Outlook Kochi: Around 25,000 gram panchayats across India will be networked by 2014 end as part of the National Optical Fibre Network programme in the first such scheme to connect so many people, Communications and IT Minister Kapil Sibal said here today. "This project would be the first of its kind in the world launched by any government connecting such a large population," he said after inaugurating 'Vidya Jyothi,' an initiative of...

-The Hindu Sundarpahari (Jharkhand): In Santhali villages in Godda, along Jharkhand's border with Bihar, many slanting stone megaliths that mark the community graves are those of young women who died in childbirth in recent years. Tribal families in the hamlets scattered in Sundarpahari and Poreyhat - many of whom speak only Santahli - recount desperate struggles for medical help when young women in their families in advanced stages of pregnancy experienced...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: In another mega scheme to woo the poor, the Centre proposes to spend Rs 7,860 crore distributing 2.5 crore mobile phones and 90 lakh tablets virtually free of cost to targeted beneficiaries over the next four years starting 2014-15, in the name of bridging the digital divide in the country. The mobile phones will come bundled with free connection charges for two years. The user, who...

-PTI CAG today slammed the HRD Ministry for the shortcomings in the Aakash tablet project, raising questions over "arbitrary" selection of IIT, Rajasthan to launch the scheme without carrying out an assessment of its capacity to undertake the work. In its report tabled in Parliament, the government auditor observed that IITR had told the Ministry that around 90 per cent of the tablets supplied by Datawind between August and November 2011 were...

-Frontline The midday meal scheme is a grand idea in a flawed school system. "THEY played here, studied here and got buried here!" (Yahin khela, yahin padha aur yahin ho gaya dafan). With these emphatic words, grieving parents buried the bodies of two children within the compound of the Dharmasati Gandaman Primary School of Masharakh block in Saran district of Bihar. This sentiment was expressed with great dignity even in the...