Mahitosh Sarkar came here from his distant village in West Bengal 12 years ago looking for a better life, and he found it. He abandoned the penniless existence of a subsistence fisherman to become a big-city vegetable seller. His wife found work as a maid. Their four children went to school. Their tiny household, a grim but weather-tight room in a dilapidated tenement, had a color TV and a satellite...

Delhi farmers on Sunday demanded that there should be a provision for a judicial review of cases in which government acquired land for public purposes but later sold them at the market price to private firms. Representatives from different villages of rural Delhi made this demand at a mahapanchayat held in Mahipalpur, one of the capital's oldest villages. The farmers had gathered to protest against the "archaic" Land Acquisition and...

With Aadhaar, a 12-digit number issued by the government, all set to become the single source as proof of identity and residence in India, the state government has begun a pilot project in some areas of the city and suburbs as a prelude to a massive exercise scheduled over the next five months. Food & civil supplies department officials have stepped up efforts to reach out to all residents as per...

The poor in India's cities are in many ways worse off than those in rural areas, says Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Minister Kumari Selja, pointing out that the urban population is set to double in the next 25 years to over 600 million. 'About 300 million people live in towns and cities underserved by utilities, with inadequate housing and increasingly choking traffic. The condition of the urban poor is by...

KEY TRENDS   • Maternal Mortality Ratio for India was 370 in 2000, 286 in 2005, 210 in 2010, 158 in 2015 and 145 in 2017. Therefore, the MMRatio for the country decreased by almost 61 percent between 2000 and 2017 *14    • As per the NSS 71st round, among rural females aged 5-29 years, the main reasons for dropping out/ discontinuance were: engagement in domestic activities, not interested in education, financial constraints and marriage. Among rural males aged...