-The Telegraph Chhatrapur: Villagers in Gopalpur are thanking their lucky stars for having escaped what could have been their worst nightmare. The port town - where the eye of cyclonic storm Phailin touched Odisha coast but not with as much intensity as had been anticipated - is yet to get a cyclone shelter. People of the coastal Nua Buxipalli village near Gopalpur said the foundation stone for the cyclone shelter there was...

-The Hindu Denying basic amenities to residents of ‘unrecognised' slums is an affront to their dignity; resettling them fails to address their concerns and is unviable financially Since 2005, the Central government has given significant amounts of money to the States to improve conditions for the country's urban poor, first under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) and more recently through the slow-moving Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY). Unfortunately, very few...

-The Telegraph Mumbai: Just when India Inc is battling a welter of accusations about crony capitalism, Transparency International has put out a report that will buttress its argument that the CBI-inspired witch hunt to name and shame some of the best-known business barons in the country is "preposterous and unwarranted". The report says Indian companies have the greatest commitment to fight corruption and the best internal systems in place to do so...

-The Hindu In addition to ailments caused by poverty, salt pan workers across the country suffer from several occupational diseases, including chronic dermatitis, loss of vision and hypothyroidism In Adivasi Colony, a remote hamlet off the road from Vedaranyam to Kodikarai in Tamil Nadu, most of the adults in the 200-odd households work in salt manufacturing. They prepare salt pans manually, irrigate them with saline water which is three times saltier than...

-The Economic Times Sometimes, putting one and one together does make 11, but many of us seem hardwired in our thoughts to assume rural income growth is a zero-sum game. For example, some people believe subsidies have driven the 15-20 per cent a-year growth in rural wages over the last five years. They come up with "explanations", including "people are selling land and consuming", "rising minimum support prices", and "NREGA is...