-The Times of India CHANDIGARH: Tired of avoiding a visit to Indian Railways toilets reeking with a nauseating stench? Get ready to excuse yourself into natty and fanciful washrooms fitted with airplane-like vacuum toilets. New railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal, who hails from Chandigarh -- one of the cleanest Cities of India -- has put the new aviation style engineering design for railways on a fast track. "We have identified some 55 Cities...

-The Business Standard Cash transfer is targeted at the poor, but Aadhaar has no role in identifying the poor The disbursement of subsidies through direct cash transfers is round the corner. It will begin in 51 districts in the new year, just over a month away, and in half the country in four months’ time. So it is important to ask: do we have the capability to take on this job,...

-Agence France-Presse Washington: The World Bank warned on Sunday that global temperatures could rise by four degrees this century without immediate action, with potentially devastating consequences for coastal Cities and the poor. Issuing a call for action, the World Bank tied the future wealth of the planet -- and especially developing regions -- to immediate efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions from sources such as energy production. "The time is very, very short....

-The Economic Times After Mahatma Gandhi, Jairam Ramesh is the only national leader to be genuinely concerned that 65 years after Independence, some 600 million Indians in the 21st century continue to use open skies as their latrines. While Lee Kuan Yew continues to exhort Singaporeans to have cleaner loos, our ministry of railways thinks depositing human excreta all along the country's length and breadth, including deep into the Cities -...

-The Times of India Families living in Cities and towns with annual income of up to Rs 1 lakh or monthly earning of up to Rs 8,334 will fall in the category of economically weaker section (EWS), according to new criteria formulated by the housing and urban poverty alleviation ministry. Households having income between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 2 lakh or monthly earning of up to Rs 16,667 will be classified...