-Tehelka Last year’s Red Fort rhetoric has not been matched by action on the ground, with separate toilets for students remaining elusive as ever One part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech on Independence Day this year can safely be predicted: the reeling out of statistics to prove that the Swachh Bharat campaign is sweeping the nation. The cleanliness drive launched on 2 October, 2014, was announced from the ramparts of the...

-The Financial Express The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), the world’s largest anti-poverty programme, reduced poverty and empowered women but its success has been limited due to lack of work in some of the poorest states, according to a recent report. Comparing two states, Chhattisgarh (strong programme implementation) and Bihar (weak), a study by the National Council of Applied Economic Research and the University of Maryland found that nearly...

-Firstpost.com New Delhi: A large section of farmers and agricultural labourers from various states across the country didn’t want to lose the opportunity of the ongoing monsoon session of the Parliament, to make their voices heard to the lawmakers of this nation. Amid sloganeering —“Ladenge, Jeetenge… Jai Kisan, Jai Kisan” (We’ll fight, we’ll win… Hail farmers!) — at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on Monday, hundreds of farmers and leaders of various...

-Hindustan Times India’s June-September monsoon has been deficient so far and quite uneven in its spread, with the rain-bearing system entering a phase that will largely determine whether the country can escape a drought for the first time in six years.   Overall, rains have been 9% lower than normal, with sharper deficits in some areas. Rainfall during August-September, the remaining two months of the rainy season, would be poor at 84%, the...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: With the parliamentary committee examining the land bill failing to reach a consensus, the government is likely to allow the current ordinance to lapse and look to tweak the earlier 2013 law to spur industrialization and infrastructure development. Fierce arguments between Congress and BJP members over the retrospective 24(2) clause and clause 101 dealing with return of unutilized land ensured the joint committee of Parliament did...