-Frontline The tussle within some Central government Ministries over proposed cuts in the budget for rural development schemes has affected a promise made to senior citizens. THEIR wizened faces said it all. Though there was disappointment, there was also a glimmer of hope that their trek to the national capital would not go in vain. For almost a month, senior citizens, most of them poor, had been pouring into New Delhi from...

-Down to Earth Over 30 per cent urban slums across India have no toilets or drainage facilities, in spite of funds being made available under JNNURM and other schemes Only 24 per cent of urban slums of across India benefited from Central government welfare schemes such as the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) and Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY) and other schemes run by state governments and local bodies, according to...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Government spending of over Rs 46,000 crore on infrastructure augmentation under UPA's flagship JNNURM scheme seems to have improved key indicators of urban life in India and reached the poorest of poor. The recent National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) data shows that over 90% of slumdwellers feel water drainage, sewerage and garbage collection and disposal have improved. The NSSO also said 24% of slums had benefited...

A new report from Right to Sanitation Campaign in India entitled: In Deep Shit paints a gloomy picture about the position of India's sanitation, and simultaneously draws our attention to the case of ‘missing' and ‘dead' toilets. The report has questioned the claims made by the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation (MDWS) that India is making great strides in availing toilets to its rural population through the Nirmal Bharat...

-Governance Now Professor Sanjay Kumar, co-director of Lokniti, a research programme of the New Delhi-based think-tank Centre for the Study of Developing Societies and one of our leading ‘election watchers', maintains that we must not read too much in the higher voting numbers and credits the election commission for preparing more accurate voter rolls. Excerpts from an interview with Trithesh Nandan: * What do you make of the phenomenon of higher turnouts? Everybody...