School girls in bright red uniforms troop down the slope in groups of threes and fours in Koppa, the fertile sugarcane town in southern Karnataka’s agricultural district of Mandya. A teenage boy on a motorcycle does the dim-and-dip with his headlights, the equivalent of a wink, as he passes the girls on his way up the slope in what seems to be a strut on a motorcycle. “Television and mobile phones...

Millions of Indians are suspected to be carriers of the drug-resistant bug After the scary New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase-1 or the “superbug” was detected two years ago, the world is now faced with the community-acquired methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (ca-MRSA) bacterium that is resistant to almost all common antibiotics. In India, where poor hygiene and the availability of over-the-counter antibiotics lead to development of resistance, an estimated 100 to 200 million people are reportedly...

-PTI Allegations of fund leakages notwithstanding, the MGNREGA scheme has improved access to financial services for farmers and holds a great scope for further agricultural and economic growth of the country, a World Economic Forum report said today. Focus on soft infrastructure in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) has led to successes in land rights issues, it said. Launched in 2005, MGNREGA is UPA government's flagship social programme. The...

-The Economic Times The charges of embezzlement of funds for the rural employment scheme may be contributing to the political battle between the Congress and the BSP in Uttar Pradesh, but it appears that, in real terms, political wrangling does not have any significant effect on its implementation. According to a study by the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, the UP government's lack of ownership of the programme, along with low...

-IANS   Custodial killings, police abuse including torture, and failure to implement policies aimed at protecting vulnerable communities marred India's record in 2011, according to the Human Rights Watch World Report. The global report released on Monday pointed out that immunity for abuses committed by security forces also continued, particularly in Jammu and Kashmir, the northeast, and areas facing Maoist insurgency. However, the report found that killings by the Border Security Force (BSF)...