With decline in insurgency, infrastructural development is taking place once again in Nagaland, especially in its rural areas. The change can be witnessed, particularly in villages where government-sponsored schemes are being implemented. Nagaland's Seithekema village is one such example. Located 20 kilometres from Dimapur on the National Highway-39, it exists as a hamlet. Established in 1979, it is located along the Valley of Parkai Mountain Range and inhabited by Angami tribals. The people here...

For all the progress on the millennium development goals, it seems countries are growing richer while leaving their poor behind In less than a week Barack Obama will be sitting down with 191 heads of government in New York to review progress on the most ambitious programme the UN has ever attempted. In 2000 the world signed up to eight goals which included halving those living in poverty, universal primary education,...

Ahead of a UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) review meeting in New York next week, Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar, a nominated member of the Rajya Sabha, Sunday said that decentralisation of power was the key to fighting poverty and hunger. 'The major lacuna in the strategy for MDG is that it ignores the crucial delivery aspect of poverty and hunger eradication. While most countries in the world, developed and developing,...

Once, during a tour of his constituency in Tamil Nadu, Member of Parliament and former Panchayati Raj minister Mani Shankar Aiyar came across an eight-year-old boy. A chance meeting that he says threw light on why India stagnates at the 134th position in the United Nations Human Development Index. The boy, Aiyar said during a brief pause in his United Nations Millennium lecture at the British Council on Sunday, had got...

Despite some movement in primary education, assured rural employment and access to potable water, India continues to lag behind in realising the Millennium Development Goals set for 2015 by the United Nations, says a new report. Persistent inequalities, ineffective delivery of public services, weak accountability systems and gaps in implementing pro-poor policies are major bottlenecks to progress, said the country report on India pertaining to the Millennium Development Goals. It...