-The Economic Times   NEW DELHI: The new NDA government under Narendra Modi is set to embark on an ambitious multi-million dollar sanitation project that seeks to clean up around 1,000 Indian towns besides eliminating manual scavenging as a tribute to Mahatma Gandhi whose 150th birth anniversary will be celebrated in 2019. Tentatively named the 'Mahatma Gandhi Clean India Programme', the project will start from three cities in Uttar Pradesh, including Modi's Lok...

-The United Nations   The global economy is expected to strengthen over the next two years, despite a downgrade of growth prospects for some developing countries and transition economies, and "stubbornly slow" job growth, according to the United Nations World Economic Situation and Prospects 2014 mid-year update launched today in New York. "More than five years after the financial crisis, the world continues to struggle with getting the global economic engine back to...

The latest WHO report entitled World Health Statistics 2014 delineates the performance made on the health front by India vis-à-vis other nations between 1990 and 2012. It also presents the challenges that the new government at the Centre should try to resolve. In India, life expectancy at birth (both sexes, in years) has increased from 58 in 1990 to 66 in 2012. While life expectancy at birth for men rose from 57...

-The Business Standard   A seven-point agenda to fix India's public services, and overcome poorly designed systems India's Achilles Heel remains its inability to deliver public services. India's aspiration to be a global economic power will be unrealised if this remains unsolved. Why is this problem so particularly acute? Is it political interference and corruption, poorly designed programmes and weak administration? Or a much deeper cultural problem of aversion to collective action, often...

-Down to Earth   The new government may take efforts to eradicate the disease, says BJP representative  Majority of the seats in eastern Uttar Pradesh and parts of western Bihar have fallen in Bharatiya Janata Party's account. Will the change of guard bring any relief to the children dying from japanese Encephalitis in the area? Aditya Nath, BJP representative in Parliament from Gorakhpur, who had been vociferously speaking about the issue, now senses a...