-The Economic Times   Nearly 70 per cent of the country's population lives in rural areas where, for the first time since independence, the overall growth rate of population has sharply declined, according to the latest Census. Of the 121 crore Indians, 83.3 crore live in rural areas while 37.7 crore stay in urban areas, said the Census of India's 2011 Provisional Population Totals of Rural-Urban Distribution in the country, released...

The communal violence bill prepared by the National Advisory Council (NAC) seeks fundamentally to change how the government deals with violence against minorities. The bill focuses on religious and linguistic minorities as well the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, but religious minorities are at its heart. The bill has some undeniable strengths, but it suffers from two analytically fatal flaws. First, it places excessive faith in the state machinery. Though...

-The Indian Express   Aimed at reducing maternal and child mortality, the Janani Suraksha Yojana is a scheme unflinching in its ambition and creativeness. Launched more than five years ago, it supplements incentives like free transport with conditional cash transfer to encourage “institutional delivery”. In the years since, the data has been encouraging, but regional variations are evident — as are, unfortunately, indications that the poorest women may not necessarily be...

-The Business Standard   The All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary Rahul Gandhi today said he would back the Posco project if the steel major provided proper rehabilitation else he would throw his weight behind the agitating people. “Posco project will bring development. We are not against development. If Posco provides proper rehabilitation, we will be with Posco. If it fails, we will be with the agitating people,” he said while...

In Uttar Pradesh's most impoverished region, Bundelkhand, government officials feed off not just the living but also the dead. Headlines Today has exposed how corrupt officials exploit the grieving families of farmers, who have committed suicide.   In a visit to Bundelkhand in 2008, AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi repeated a phrase borrowed from his father Rajiv Gandhi: "Out of 100 paise, only 15 paise reaches the poor".   While travelling through this dustbowl...