The conclusions of the United Nations summit on the world's progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) present a gloomy picture. Some goals such as universal primary education, reducing child mortality, and improving maternal health are unlikely to be reached by the 2015 deadline. The world may be on track to meet the target of halving the number of people living under $1 a day, but the numbers suffering from...

Impressed with the work done by Gujarat in use of geographic information system, a central expert group has recommended the state's programme as a "base model" to develop a "national framework" for utilisation of the technology in monitoring and implementation of NREGA. The expert group, headed by Rural Development Ministry Secretary B K Sinha, noted in a recent meeting that Gujarat has done "relatively fair amount of work" on the use...

Chronic under-nutrition among women decreased in Bihar and Orissa The urban food security situation has deteriorated in Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnakata and Madhya Pradesh, while Punjab showed a marginal worsening till 2006, says a Report on the State of Food Insecurity in Urban India released here on Friday by Union Urban Development Minister Jaipal Reddy. “Indicators such as the percentage of anaemia amongst women and children, the percentage of women...

Is the government trying to push a new land Acquisition Bill without addressing the concerns of the deprived people who stand to lose their livelihoods? Peoples’ movements and social action groups have charged that the cash-based Haryana and Mayawati models of land acquisition are equally ‘dangerous’ for the landless and the deprived people who get uprooted without compensation or rehabilitation. People’s movements have been demanding that instead of bringing Land...

Bhaggu, 65, says he can trace his memory back to when he was five. And he remembers the paradox that’s taunted him since: Of his village — Sohras, in northern Uttar Pradesh — being flooded every year and him having no water to drink. “They (government) distribute food, tarpaulin, kerosene, matchboxes but never made any arrangement for water,” says Bhaggu, a farm worker who goes by one name. “I think no...