-The Hindu Business Line Beefing up input delivery, expanding irrigation facilities & infusing technology are the key India needs rapid economic growth to lift people out of poverty and meet the basic needs of a growing population. It is well recognised that for growth to be inclusive, it must create adequate livelihood opportunities and add to decent employment commensurate with the expectations of a growing workforce. Massive growth in information and communication technologies...

-GRIST Media If hard work and enterprise inevitably made you prosperous, every rural woman would be a millionaire. These women have borne the brunt of the radical, often brutal transformation of rural India these past two decades. Our writers examine the hardships they continue to face as well as their remarkable vision to solve some of the greatest problems of our times such as food security, environmental justice and developing a...

-The Third Pole Cities and villages in India will soon run out of potable water if current trends continue, warns senior water official India's groundwater tables are plunging at an alarming rate with reserves in some states dwindling to critical levels, according to the latest report from the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) - the apex body under the Ministry of Water Resources. Over 16% of the country's groundwater resources are ‘over-exploited' -...

-Tehelka.com Cleanliness of Indian cities cannot be ensured without job security, safety gear and competitive wages for sanitary workers. In a unique address to the nation on 2 October - Mahatma Gandhi's birth anniversary - Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed his commitment to devote 100 hours every year to sweeping the floor, picking up the waste and dusting his windows. He also urged everybody to do the same so that Indian cities...

Documents availed through RTI reveals that the Rural Development minister Shri Nitin Gadkari has ordered to bring drastic changes in the schedule of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), which includes changing the labour to material ratio and restricting the implementation of MGNREGA in 1/3rd of backward blocks in India (please click here to access a note on labour-material ratio prepared by People's Action for Employment Guarantee-PAEG). The MoRD has notified the...