-PTI As per World Bank statistics, of the 2.4 billion people who lack access to improved sanitation globally, more than 750 million live in India, with 80% living in rural areas. The World Bank has approved a $1.5 billion (nearly Rs 10,036.5 crore) loan for the ambitious Clean India campaign to support the Indian government in its efforts to ensure all citizens in rural areas have access to improved sanitation and...

-Livemint.com Bano Haralu saves and protects Amur falcons in Nagaland As you read this, one of nature’s greatest spectacles is unfolding in the breathtakingly beautiful North-Eastern state of Nagaland. Thousands of Amur falcons, small birds of prey, are congregating at the Doyang reservoir in Wokha district, having flown thousands of kilometres from Siberia. This is their annual stop at the reservoir; they rest and roost there before flying off to their...

-Livemint.com In 1986, Italian journalist Carlo Petrini was outraged when McDonald’s opened its first outlet in Rome. He saw this as a threat to Italy’s culinary culture. He led a protest against the global industrialization of food, which culminated in the slow food movement. Starting in Rome, the movement is now a worldwide phenomenon. Edited excerpts from an interview at the Indigenous Terra Madre in Shillong: * What are the key achievements...

-Outlook Recent studies point to two areas where NREGS has had an impact — rural education and Naxalite conflict. "Economics is haunted by more fallacies than any other study known to man."  This rather depressing assessment of the field is the opening sentence of Henry Hazlitt's classic primer, Economics in one lesson. In Hazlitt's view, most economists only measure the immediate impact of their policies. A good economist, Hazlitt contended, looks not merely...

-PTI United Nations: India has been ranked a low 131 out of 167 nations on a global index that measures the level of information and communication technology access, even as the number of households with Internet and computer has increased in the country over the last five years. UN International Telecommunications Union’s flagship annual Measuring the Information Society Report said that globally 3.2 billion people are now online, representing 43.4 per cent...