-The Times of India With the state budget all set to be presented on July 12, TOI takes a hard look at the government's cheap rice scheme and its impact on politics and employment. Will cheap rice boil? Let's look at the math. Reducing the price from Rs 3 to Re 1 per kg will help a family save Rs 60 per month. Till now, poor families got rice from the Public Distribution...

-The United Nations Without fresh ideas to address rapid urbanization, the number of people living in slums lacking access to basic infrastructure and services such as sanitation, electricity, and health care may skyrocket from one billion at present to three billion by 2050, the United Nations today reported. That wake up call is one of several alarm bells sounded in the UN World Economic and Social Survey 2013, which was launched today...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Common nutritional supplement milk you take may not be all that nutritious as an overwhelming majority of samples of milk supplied across the country failed to meet the food safety and standard norms. The Centre on Tuesday dished out startling fact about the health of milk supplied both loose or in packets and informed the Supreme Court that 68.4% of the samples collected from rural and...

-The Hindu New Delhi: Over 40 people were taken ill after consuming contaminated water, supplied by Delhi Jal Board, on the NCERT campus near Hauz Khas on Tuesday. While some of those affected are under treatment at various city hospitals including Safdarjung, Rockland and Saket City Hospital in South Delhi, two persons including a four-year-old child allegedly died in the area following complication arising out of drinking unclean water this past Sunday. However,...

Groundwater, which irrigates half of Indian agriculture and provides 85% of rural drinking consumption, is an increasingly scarce resource. There is a growing understanding that it must be approached as a common property resource for collective benefit. It is best understood and managed by those who live near them and use them rather than agencies who visit sporadically - that is the central premise of efforts around participatory groundwater management....