-Newsclick.in Recent studies have shown that even as India fares better than many developing regions of the world on several indicators of growth and development such as GDP, per capita, Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), literacy, life expectancy, etc., the number of malnourished children in India is significantly high. What explains this paradox? The Union Cabinet recently approved a multi-sectoral nutritional programme proposed by the Ministry of Women and Child Development to reduce...

-The Hindu Delayed payments to poor households threaten to scuttle scheme to build toilets under Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan Churu (Rajasthan): Three years ago, Churu, a town of 1.2-lakh people in the Thar desert, was ranked India's dirtiest town by the Planning Commission. Two years ago, the overall district had over 40 per cent households with no toilet of their own. Today, the district is close to its goal of becoming open defecation-free,...

-Outlook The faecal matter hits the rotary blades, politically-but we're still staring at a sanitation disaster "Indians defecate everywhere. They defecate mostly besides the railway tracks. But they also defecate on the beaches; they defecate on the hills; they defecate on the river banks; they defecate on the streets; they never look for cover." -V.S. Naipaul An Area of Darkness, 1964 Not...

-Economic and Political Weekly The economic and living conditions of scheduled caste and scheduled tribe households have experienced changes during the phase of accelerated economic growth in the last decade based on 2001 and 2011 Census data. There has been considerable progress in the well-being of SCs and STs during the last decade, but the gap between SCs and STs and of both these groups and the rest of the population...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: Over a third of the slum population in India lives without any basic facility being provided by the state as the slums are not recognized. In the case of some states like Rajasthan, Gujarat and Bihar, the entire slum population of several lakhs remains unrecognized by the state governments. For the first time, the census data on slums identified slum dwellers as the people living in compact...