-India Today Many schools across the state that do not have a building and are being run either from Shanties, temple or from open space. Bhopal: The Madhya Pradesh government claims to have reached the last mile when it comes to providing schools for children under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan as records claim that no student at the primary-level has to walk more than 5-km to reach a school. A reality check,...

-The Times of India Mumbai: Sumit Kulkarni puts on a surgical mask before entering the sprawling Annabhau Sathe Nagar slum in Mankhurd along with his team, equipped with wi-fi enabled tablets and high-resolution cameras, on a sultry afternoon recently. In a maze of narrow passages filled with a nauseating odour, gutter water and muck flow through the tightly-packed Shanties. But Kulkarni and his young colleagues trudge along, knocking on every tin shed...

-TheWire.in According to the central government’s statement to the Supreme Court last week, a third of the India’s districts are currently facing a severe drought. This means that at least 33 crore Indians are affected by ongoing the crisis. Expressing their deep concern on the issue and the impact it is having on rural populations of the country, and asking that the government take appropriate relief measures immediately, more than 150 academics...

-Business Standard The yet-to-be released census shows 27.65 per cent of 63.4 million households to be highly vulnerable As much as 27.65 per cent of the 63.4 million urban households in India are either homeless or are occupationally/socially vulnerable and, hence, are likely to be automatically included in a list of beneficiaries for government programmes. In contrast, the figure for rural India is 0.92 per cent of 179.1 million households, according to the...

-Hindustan Times The picture of rural Indian life today that emerges from what is probably the world's largest study ever of household deprivation is sobering and sombre. It describes a massive hinterland still imprisoned in persisting endemic impoverishment, want, illiteracy and indeed hopelessness. It tells a story that every thinking and caring Indian must heed. Advocates of free markets, opposed to building a welfare state, have long argued that accelerated market-led economic...