-The Hindu A campaign launched by a community service institution to make selected villages in Bharatpur district of Rajasthan shed the below poverty line (BPL) tag has immensely benefited the poor families in the region and facilitated creation of new employment opportunities, small entrepreneurships and income-generating ventures. The youth and women are especially getting involved in new enterprises in large numbers. Kheria Purohit village in Deeg tehsil of Bharatpur district, where 15...

-The Hindu So now we know why Gujarat has such appalling numbers when it comes to malnourished children. Asked by the Wall Street Journal what he was doing about the persistently high rates of malnutrition in his State, Chief Minister Narendra Modi lamented the fact that young girls just don’t listen to mummy. “If a mother tells her daughter to have milk, they’ll have a fight. She’ll tell her mother, ‘I...

-DNA Not just mobile telephony, rural subscribers are emerging as the fastest growing consumers of internet as well in the country. According to the Internet and mobile Association of India (IAMAI), the number of rural internet users increased from 29 million as of December 2011 to 38 million at the end of June and is expected to touch 45 million by the end of December this year. The penetration of internet users in...

-The Financial Express As the Centre braces for an expanded distribution of grain among the poor under the national food security law, here’s a sobering thought. According to the latest official data, various state governments have failed to utilise even the grain allocated under the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS). During the last three fiscal years, states have not been able to take the full delivery of grain — mostly rice and...

-The Economic Times New discoveries of natural resources in several African countries - including Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, and Mozambique - raise an important question: will these windfalls be a blessing that brings prosperity and hope, or a political and economic curse, as has been the case in so many countries? On average, resource-rich countries have done even more poorly than countries without resources. They have grown more slowly, and with greater inequality...