An inspection of 60 schools – most of them located in East Delhi and Chandni Chowk parliamentary constituencies – by over 15 organisations under the Delhi Right to Education Forum has revealed “complete lack of hygiene” in most of them. As per Joint Operation for Social Help (JOSH), which had filed a complaint with the Central Information Commission about the state of schools in Delhi, the inspection was undertaken in accordance...

-The Hindustan Times   The much-criticised new poverty cutoff — proposed recently by the Planning Commission, it sets the bar for urban poverty at Rs 32 spent per person per day — would exclude many beggars in Mumbai, a survey has found. The survey, conducted over the past six months by University of Mumbai’s Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Centre for Social Justice in hutments across the city, found that only nine of 1,043...

-The Hindu   ‘Panel's affidavit skirted main issues of why should there be poverty line that determines BPL “caps” and to re-consider poverty line' The Right to Food Campaign on Thursday asked the Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia to explain how the per capita poverty line expenditure of Rs. 25 per day in rural and Rs. 32 per day in urban area could be normatively ‘adequate' as the panel had claimed...

-PTI   The UIDAI chief Nandan Nilekani today asserted that the authority set up for issuing national identity cards was working under the powers delegated by the Prime Minister. "My powers have been delegated by the Prime minister," Unique Identification Development Authority of India (UIDAI) Chairman Nilekani said when asked whether the authority was on a collision course with the Planning Commission. "We are an attached office of the Planning Commission and by series...

-The Times of India   Aruna Roy and Harsh Mander, members of the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council, have joined Right to Food campaigners in demanding that Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia withdraw the poverty line affidavit filed by the panel before the Supreme Court or resign. In an open letter by the two prominent members of the UPA think-tank National Advisory Council in their capacity as members of the Right...