700 million Indians have cell phones, but 638 million still don’t have access to proper sanitation. At this year’s South Asian Conference on Sanitation, social solutions to the problem were discussed, including “naming and shaming” and the CLTS programme which gets villagers to map the open areas where they defecate There can hardly be a bigger taboo than sanitation when it comes to the government, bureaucracy or even the people...

The government on Monday told the Supreme Court that it had given its consent for a CBI probe into alleged corruption in the utilisation of National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) funds in Orissa. “The consent to have an investigation into the alleged misappropriation and diversion of funds for the scheme has been given by the minister concerned (Ministry of Rural Development),” Additional Solicitor General Indira Jaising told a bench headed...

Extreme poverty and clamour for firewood have forced some people in Nayagram into extreme occupations. One such is gathering kolmipoka, an insect with medicinal value After walking almost 30km along rutted roads since the morning, middle-aged Bonchu Nayek returns to his humble home, a two-room hut, as darkness descends on Nayagram—one of West Bengal’s poorest villages—with his day’s earning of Rs10. Nayek, whose forefathers were hunters, belongs to the Lodha-Sabar tribe. With...

Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s son Avijit Mukherjee, who is contesting from Nalhati in Birbhum district as a Congress candidate in the West Bengal assembly Elections, has assets worth more than Rs 5 crore jointly with his wife. Avijit who filed his nomination on Tuesday stated in his affidavits that he had movable assets worth Rs 58.2 lakh. These include a Maruti 800 car, an army Mahindra jeep and a revolver...

Even as anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare appealed to his supporters not to pay attention to “disinformation and distractive campaigns” being unleashed against him, the Congress on Wednesday said no initiative, however genuine, should undermine democracy. The veiled message came from Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari in response to a query as towhether the party believed that Mr. Hazare should contest Elections. Mr. Tewari said, “I have no comments to make on an individual's...