-Press Information Bureau The India Rural Development Report 2012/13 was released here by Shri Jairam Ramesh, Minister for Rural Development, Government of India. The Report was prepared by IDFC Foundation in collaboration with network partners, the Centre for Economic and Social Studies (CESS), the Institute for Rural Management Anand (IRMA), and the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), with contributions from several other researchers, experts and civil society organisations. On...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: An expert panel has ranked Gujarat 12th among states in development, its findings flying in the face of Narendra Modi's claims but winning endorsement from economists The Telegraph spoke to. The committee, headed by Raghuram Rajan who has since been appointed Reserve Bank governor, assessed states on the basis of 10 criteria, which included many human development indicators. Bengal came 16th. Economist and Planning Commission member Abhijit Sen, who...

-Live Mint According to Unicef, India houses one-third of the stunted, wasted and malnourished children of the world Malnutrition is a persistent problem in India, though it is often confused with hunger. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), about 18% of India's population was undernourished in 2012. Undernourishment is the main cause of children's deaths, and according to the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef), India houses one-third of the stunted,...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: More than three years after the implementation of the RTE Act and an expenditure of over Rs 46,282.11 crore on school infrastructure, around 1.28 lakh out of 10,75,407 government elementary schools across the country still don't have toilets and over 61,000 lack drinking water facilities. According to the District Information System for Education 2011-12, Bihar has 18,169 schools without lavatories, the highest among states. Andhra Pradesh...

-PTI CAG today slammed the HRD Ministry for the shortcomings in the Aakash tablet project, raising questions over "arbitrary" selection of IIT, Rajasthan to launch the scheme without carrying out an assessment of its capacity to undertake the work. In its report tabled in Parliament, the government auditor observed that IITR had told the Ministry that around 90 per cent of the tablets supplied by Datawind between August and November 2011 were...