-The Business Standard A third of the poorest urban population had exclusive supply of drinking water in 2012 against 28.5% in 2008-09 Accessibility to potable water improved for the poor in the country between 2009 and 2012, particularly in rural areas, said a National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) report. Around 27 per cent of those belonging to the bottom section (0-20 quintile) in rural areas had exclusive supply of drinking water in...

-India Today Geography of rice and wheat has been transformed with Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh generating surpluses Almost 50 years ago, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri went on air to appeal to Indians to skip a meal a day. Foodgrain supplies had come under strain after the 1965 drought, and the patriotic ethos cautioned against over-consumption: what you ate left that much less for the rest. Today, it is...

-PTI New Delhi: Rising prices of rice in the open market prompted households to reduce consumption and rely on ration shops to buy it at controlled rate, shows a government survey. According to the NSSO survey, Indian families consumed less rice in 2011-12 but their purchases of the commodity under Public Distribution System (PDS) doubled in villages and rose by 66 percent in cities. The monthly per capita rice consumption in villages was...

-The Business Standard C Rangarajan, former head of the former Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council, answers questions on the latest official poverty estimate by a committee he'd chaired. Edited excerpts of a talk with Indivjal Dhasmana: * Your panel has suggested these poverty lines be delinked from social welfare schemes. What would be the exercise's relevance? Is it of only academic interest? Poverty ratios have already been delinked from various social programmes. The...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: After a gap of fourteen years since it last checked the trend of drug abuse in the country, the Centre is now all set to conduct an "advanced survey" on the extent, pattern and trend of drug abuse among the citizens. In order to assess the extent and nature of addiction in the country at present, the government will conduct an advanced pilot survey in two...