-The Hindu     In spite of the rosy picture painted by the World Bank, the prospect of eliminating extreme poverty remains distant In a protracted period of gloom and persistent recession with feeble signs of recovery in a large part of the developed world, the World Bank, Brookings Institution and others can be forgiven for their euphoria over the accomplishment of a key Millennium Development Goal (MDG) - of halving extreme poverty in...

-The Hindu Kitne hi raaste hain mere dil mein jo Poonch ko jaate hai Mein jidhar se chalta hun Poonch pohonch jaata hun. Engraved on a granite plate under the bust of noted Urdu writer Krishan Chander at a public garden in Jammu & Kashmir's Poonch, these intense lines reflect the writer's love for this beautiful border district. But even as he penned these lines, little could he have known that the inspiring...

-The Economic Times If India is now debating opening the books and operations of political parties to the public, it's because of these six people who pulled strategic levers and applied relentless pressure. Soma Banerjee traces a four-year effort that converted intent to action Balwant Singh Khera, a politician from Hoshiarpur in Punjab, is not a name that will strike a chord in mainstream politics or social discourse today. It might in...

-The Times of India JABALPUR: Misfortune, like locusts, always arrives in bunches, philosophizes Sona Bai. The Gond tribal girl from Betul district's Neharpur village in her 20s knows this best. Getting booted out of the mass marriage pandal along with eight other prospective brides on June 7 after sarkari dai announced to the world her pregnancy, was only the beginning. Worse things seem to be hurtling down her way. Peeved at the...

-The World Bank blog "Five years ago, I was no one," said Kunti Devi to me, sitting up straight against the wall of her one-room mud hut in Bara, a small village in India's eastern state of Bihar. "Now, people know me by my own name, not just by the name of my children." I was sitting on the floor, across from Devi, a mother of eight, who belonged to one of...