-Livemint.com The International Water Day serves as an annual reminder of the mess in management of water resources In an intriguing order on 20 March, the Uttarakhand High Court has recognized the rivers Ganges and Yamuna as a living entity, which means that anybody found polluting the river would be seen as harming a human being. It remains to be seen what impact the order has but the order does reflect a...

-PTI The Gujarat government should build separate crematoriums for Dalits in those villages where the community is still facing problems, the Scheduled Castes Welfare Committee of the Gujarat Assembly has suggested. The Assembly panel, which serves as the watchdog of welfare schemes being run by various government departments for SCs in Gujarat, also recommended reservation system for the recruitment in self financed colleges in Gujarat. These suggestions were made in two of the...

-The Hindu Among SAARC nations, it’s third behind Sri Lanka, Maldives India slipped down one place from 130 to 131 among the 188 countries ranked in terms of human Development, says the 2016 Human Development Report (HDR) released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on Tuesday. India’s human Development index (HDI) value of 0.624 puts it in the “medium human Development” category, alongside countries such as Congo, Namibia and Pakistan. It is...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: A UN report released today has ranked India 131 out of 188 countries worldwide on human Development and has cited figures suggesting that about half of India's people face deprivation in education, health and living standards. Inequality, multidimensional poverty and gender gaps appear to be factors holding back India's progress on the human Development index (HDI), a measure linked to progress towards a long, healthy life, access to...

-TheWire.in In Gujarat’s Chhota Udaipur, MNREGA has helped villagers increase their earnings, improved connectivity in the area and led to higher farm yields. In the ubiquitous environment of the withdrawal of the welfare state across the globe, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) in India stands out as a critical and unique intervention. MNREGA is a social safety net that guarantees 100 days of employment to every rural household...