-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...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Contrary to the perception that the UPA government has been spending more on social sector schemes, a financial audit of the Union government's accounts for 2011-12, tabled in Parliament on Tuesday, reveals that every year, the spending has been coming down drastically on most of the major flagship programmes - by up to 63% in some cases. The largest allocation in the Budget in the last...

-The Hindu Health activists remind the Prime Minister of his last year's promise of free medication which will fulfil people's right to essential medicines Last year during his Independence Day speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had announced free distribution of medicines through government hospitals and health centres. One year down the line, however, the promise is far from being fulfilled and the declaration has made...

-The New Indian Express In 1948 when the United Nations passed the covenant ensuring the right to food, vis-à-vis the right to proper livelihood, to which India became a signatory, it did not envisage that the whole issue would be caught up in such an imbroglio - political and economic - as one witnesses today. The original covenant in article 25 ensures the "right to work and livelihood" and right to...

-Frontline The midday meal scheme is a grand idea in a flawed school system. "THEY played here, studied here and got buried here!" (Yahin khela, yahin padha aur yahin ho gaya dafan). With these emphatic words, grieving parents buried the bodies of two children within the compound of the Dharmasati Gandaman Primary School of Masharakh block in Saran district of Bihar. This sentiment was expressed with great dignity even in the...