India is lagging in its effort to reach United Nations goals to reduce poverty and improve health and sanitation, but has shown significant progress boosting education, treating AIDS and addressing environmental concerns, a U.N. official said. “We are in a race against time with just three years left” to achieve Millennium Development Goals, Noeleen Heyzer, executive secretary of the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, said last...

The alleged incident of two quarry workers in Tamil Nadu's Villupuram district being forced to swallow faeces draws attention to larger issues. NORMALLY the villages and hamlets in and around Thiruvakkarai in Tamil Nadu's Villupuram district are woken up by the loud noise and vibrations caused by the blasting of rocks and the pounding of boulders with sledge hammers, apart from the rattling sound of tipper lorries transporting stones from 40-odd...

Proposes inter-ministry contribution for prioritising the issues   Union Minister of Rural Development Jairam Ramesh has presented a plan to various Central ministries to contribute to the cause of drinking water and sanitation, saying that investment for a healthy population was as important as investing for defence. Mr. Ramesh, who also holds the drinking water and Sanitation portfolio, on Tuesday had his proposals ratified at the National drinking water and Sanitation Council which...

Historians tell us of the colonial era stories of miserable conditions of workers, even bonded labour, in tea plantations of eastern India. However, the situation improved after independence. In the past few decades the tea industry has made steady profits even in worst years of economic downturn. And that is why reports of starvation deaths in tea plantations of Assam are so shocking. An Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) report says that...

-The Hindu “If Shyam Benegal [film director] can come up with a toilet version of Manthan[movie that focused on milk cooperatives] we can break a certain social barrier” towards solving a problematic issue like sanitation, felt Jairam Ramesh, Union Minister of Rural Development. Launching the Asia-Pacific Millennium Development Goals report of the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific, Mr. Ramesh recalled howManthan that featured Smita Patil had changed women's...