-The Hindu   Mumbai: Union Minister for Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Ajay Maken on Tuesday wrote to Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, asking him to stop demolition of the houses of slum dwellers, after a delegation of the National Alliance of People's Movements headed by Medha Patkar met him in New Delhi. He asked Mr. Chavan to see that the Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY) was implemented with much more enthusiasm and in...

-The Hindu In its latest form, the National Food Security Bill, 2013 promises to address the extreme irony of an ambitious nation holding mountains of food in storage, while masses of its people are undernourished or even starving. The right to food is finally on the threshold of being legislated. Every step taken to widen the coverage of food security schemes is an advance. Yet, the empirical truth is that...

-The Hindu   Success stories from the right to education law give no joy when assessments show that children are ill-versed in the 3Rs and classrooms remain discriminatory Three years ago today, India, for the first time in history, made a promise to its children. With the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education coming into effect on April 1, 2010, every child was guaranteed the fundamental right to eight years of...

-The Times of India AURANGABAD: The khadi and paithani department of the Mahatma Gandhi Mission (MGM) trust is planning to spread its wings in rural areas of the state by employing women to operate handlooms in Akola district and its neighbouring four villages. The objective behind this initiative is to promote and popularize khadi among youth. Through this mission, the department has come up with the idea of producing khadi jeans to...

-The Telegraph   Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government proposes to set up review committees at village levels and Urban areas to keep a tab on all health related programmes. The committees, which will have people from various walks of life, will do social audit of the projects being implemented in their areas. Health and family welfare minister Damodar Rout today said: "The committees will be set up in rural as well as Urban areas. All...