-The Hindu Villages get infrastructure to conserve water and recharge wells Madurai: The district's dry pockets in the Usilampatti and Sedapatti blocks are alive with development activity aimed at mitigating the hardship faced by drought-hit farmers. Watershed and percolation ponds are being created in these regions. On the lines of initiatives taken by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) and non-governmental organisations, the State government is establishing watershed projects to...

-The Hindustan Times Nilesh Singit, 43, completed his Master's degree in Literature from Mumbai university in 1993 and a course in information technology soon after, and thought he was ready for the job market. Responses from the initial telephonic interviews too sounded positive. Then he went for the face-to-face rounds. A cerebral palsy survivor, Singit was rejected by one company after another - for four years. Dejected, he decided to turn entrepreneur....

-The Hindu While the Delhi rape incident saw mass protests for justice, crimes against Dalits hardly evoke such outrage, which is why the killers in the Laxmanpur-Bathe massacre have got away The response by the state to the 2012 Delhi gang rape case was immediate and effective - a commission to review legislative protections and recommend amendments, and a new enactment. The judiciary responded similarly - death penalty for the accused and...

-The Indian Express Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has more than one reason to cheer the Raghuram Rajan committee report's ranking of states on composite development. Apart from being put close to the bottom of the ladder in the new index of underdevelopment, Bihar also scores near the top in "performance", that is, the reduction of underdevelopment - a most sensible parameter introduced in the report - far ahead of Narendra...

-The Hindu Direct Benefits Transfer is potentially a game-changer, but with certain pre-requisites: Mihir Shah Planning Commission member, Mihir Shah, speaks to The Hindu about a wide range of issues, including the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and his contribution to the 12 Five-Year Plan. Excerpts: * The MGNREGA has come under criticism from many quarters, including the CAG. Do you feel this criticism is warranted? How do you...