-PTI Internet revolution has bypassed rural India with less than half a per cent of families having the facility at home as against 6 per cent in cities, reveals a government survey. "At all India level only about 0.4 per cent of rural households had access to Internet at home as compared to about 6 per cent of urban households," said the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) report on expenditure in 2009-10. Reflecting...

Faced with stark hint from Trinamool boss Mamata Banerjee that she might act independently of UPA in the presidential poll if her demand for financial relief for West Bengal was not conceded in a "few days", the Centre has scrambled to find ways to organize assistance for debt-stricken state. Officials handling the task now say they can rush relief to Bengal without having to seek a clearance from the Finance Commission....

Dalits, OBCs in India’s colleges are using beef as a symbol of a resurgent identity     “Non-Brahmins have evidently undergone a revolution. From being beef-eaters to have become non-beef-eaters was indeed a revolution. But if non-Brahmins underwent one revolution, Brahmins had undergone two. They gave up beef-eating, which was one revolution. To have given up meat-eating altogether and become vegetarians was another revolution.”     —B.R. Ambedkar *** The Beef Menu     Available In Kerala,...

-The Hindustan Times Members of Parliament had increased their pension three-fold but a universal pension scheme for senior citizens has remained a piped dream. This is despite the UPA government’s promise before 2009 general elections of providing social security net for vulnerables, said National Advisory Council member Aruna Roy, while announcing a national campaign for demanding monthly old age pension of Rs. 2,000 or half of minimum wage of a state, whichever...

-PTI About 60 per cent of India's rural population lives on less than Rs 35 a day and nearly as many in cities live on Rs 66 a day, reveals a government survey on income and expenditure. "In terms of average per capita daily expenditure, it comes out to be about Rs 35 in rural and Rs 66 in urban India. About 60 per cent of the population live with these expenditures...