-The Hindu Business Line   Most Indians are not aware of, or responsive to, the issue. For this, the media is squarely responsible The Ministry of Environment and Forests is now the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change. Including climate change as a key component in the title of the ministry is all very well, but how do we envisage taking climate change and its everyday implications to the masses? A 2011 Yale...

-The Deccan Herald The poverty line continues to be a conundrum. The fixing of the poverty line at Rs 47 for urban areas and Rs. 32 in rural areas per capita per day by the latest Rangarajan committee report, based on a person or family's spending per day (called ‘consumption expenditure') has again drawn vociferous criticism. All these years, this all important line has not been fixed in a rational manner, rendering...

-The Tribune The UPA's flagship programme MGNREGS changed the employment scene for the rural poor. While 100-day job guarantee was a novel step, loopholes and poor implementation rendered it a liability. The Modi govt hopes to gradually reinvent the scheme, if not entirely scrap it. Midway through the Congress-led UPA's second tenure - believed to be largely the courtesy of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) -...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Increase in vehicular traffic and rampant encroachment of pavements have left very little space for pedestrians in the capital. Most of the government initiatives have been hanging fire while experts insist that the capital badly needs pedestrian-friendly infrastructure. Many Delhiites who attended the second Raahgiri Day on Sunday also said the government should plan urban infrastructure keeping pedestrians and cyclists in mind. "I would love to...

-The Hindu   The urban future depends on making cities intelligent, and that applies equally to both new and old parts of the city Smart cities, the flagship project of the Bharatiya Janata Party's urban vision, have received a firm financial allocation in the Union budget. The government has provided Rs.7,060 crore to build 100 smart cities as satellite towns on the outskirts of large cities to accommodate the burgeoning urban population. Foreign...