-The Indian Express The 10 toilets were built in three spurts — four toilets each were inaugurated before the 1999 and 2005 Assembly elections, when the Left Front was in power. Sahari (Binpur): Two classrooms, 60 students and 10 toilets for girls — none of which is functional. This is Sahari Primary School at Binpur, an assembly segment in Jangalmahal reserved for tribals. Like clockwork, politicians have turned up here before...

-The Indian Express Several questions have been raised about our estimates of the savings from the DBT scheme for cooking gas. But all parties accept that the programme reduced subsidised sales by 24 per cent. Direct cash transfers have the potential to improve the economic lives of the poor by transferring benefits to households quickly and directly. Achieving these benefits requires thoughtful design of schemes, and careful, rigorous analysis of ongoing...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Supreme Court today said it was not possible on its part to order mining activities in the state's bauxite-rich Niyamgiri hills unless the gram sabhas and others likely to be affected by it were also heard in the matter. The apex court asked the Odisha Mining Corporation, which had sought fresh gram sabhas to consider the contentious Niyamgiri mining issue, to make the 14 gram sabhas, which...

-The Hindu Business Line BusinessLine goes to villages, including those visited in 2014, to understand the progress of the ambitious National Optical Fibre Network. Unused infrastructure and low awareness tell a story of missed links In one corner of the Ramnagar village panchayat office, in Panisagar block of Tripura, is a defunct four-year-old computer. The machine, connected with a 10 mbps broadband line was supposed to bring digital services to this remote...

-The Times of India Raipur: CAG has pointed out several deficiencies in the implementation of mid-day meal scheme in Chhattisgarh. The mid-day meal scheme was launched on August 15, 1995, by Centre to boost universalisation of primary education by increasing enrolment, retention and attendance, and simultaneously improving nutritional status of students in primary classes. The CAG report on General, Social and Economic (non-PSUs) for the year ended March 2015, which was...