Nine moths after the thrashing it received in the Assembly elections, the CPM leadership has undertaken a purge within. It has dropped 13 of its veterans from the West Bengal state committee, three of them several-term MPs, from key posts on grounds of “anti-party activities” or age and health. Party insiders say the exercise was a reflection of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee asserting himself with the party’s state unit. Such a drive had,...

 The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) is giving final touches to two reports where it has pointed out anomalies in allocation of funds under the centrally-runJNNURM scheme and UPA government's debt waiver to farmers in 2008, something the opposition may use as a stick to beat the government during the budget session.  In the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), the CAG, sources said, is reviewing how central funds were...

-The Economic Times With roughly three years left for India to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the country has managed to show significant progress in 10 of the 22 indicators.  With impressive gains in improving primary education enrollment rate, promoting gender equality and increasing forest cover, the country's lackluster performance in reducing overall poverty and health indicators has dragged down the performance of the overall South Asian region.  The millennium development Goals...

-IANS Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh on Friday expressed concern that the government's Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) is being seen as a "token sanitation campaign" and rued that women were demanding mobile phones but not toilets.  "Women demand mobile phones, they are not demanding toilets... Sanitation is the much more difficult issue," Ramesh said at the launch of Asia-Pacific Regional MDGs (Millenium Development Goals) Report 2011-12.  Ramesh said women's self-help groups (SHGs) should...

-The Hindu “If Shyam Benegal [film director] can come up with a toilet version of Manthan[movie that focused on milk cooperatives] we can break a certain social barrier” towards solving a problematic issue like sanitation, felt Jairam Ramesh, Union Minister of Rural Development. Launching the Asia-Pacific Millennium Development Goals report of the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific, Mr. Ramesh recalled howManthan that featured Smita Patil had changed women's...