The all-crucial Below the Poverty Line (BPL) survey will not be completed ahead of the start of the 12th Five-Year Plan and consequently the execution of the promised food security entitlement, for which the government intends passing legislation in the coming Parliament session, will suffer. Following a review meeting with officials of all States here on Friday, Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh admitted that the deadline for conducting the Socio Economic...

A survey to identify the country’s poor looks set to miss its December 2011 deadline since it has not even started in 20-odd states, including Bengal. The “socio-economic caste census” is being conducted by the rural development ministry, urban housing and poverty alleviation ministry, and the registrar-general of India. One reason that a rural development ministry official cited for the delay is Bharat Electronics Limited’s failure to supply enough low-cost tablet computers...

In a remote Indian village in the Western state of Maharashtra, a fourth-grader named Suraj Balu Zore proudly told IPS that he can now effortlessly operate a laptop computer. Fallen by the wayside of urban India’s information technology (IT) superhighway, Khairat village – located just 80 kilometres from booming Mumbai – still has no access to the Internet.  But thanks to the recent efforts of ‘one laptop per child’ – a project...

-IANS   In order to promote personal hygene among young rural girls, Tamil Nadu launched distribution of free sanitary napkins to girls in the age group of 10 to 19 in all the villages. In a statement issued here Friday by the government, Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa has ordered distribution of free sanitary napkins to young girls as well as lactating mothers and women prisoners across the state at an annual outlay of...

-The Times of India   HRD minister Kapil Sibal on Wednesday expressed concern about the failure of big states in implementing the Right to Education Act. He was speaking at the state education ministers' conference on chalking out a community mobilization programme for RTE. "It will be a historic failure, if we have passed the Act but not implemented." Sibal said. So far, 20 states have notified RTE rules. However, big states like...