-The Economic Times KOCHI: If you want a good cook, go to a prison in Kerala. Yes, jails are sprouting culinary talent, and tasty, healthy and affordable food prepared by the inmates has become a big hit. People are gobbling up chapatis, curries, idlis, banana chips, laddus and cakes made by convicts at half the market price; and next month its popularity will acquire divine proportions as devotees at the Sabarimala temple...

-The Hindu Delayed payments to poor households threaten to scuttle scheme to build toilets under Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan Churu (Rajasthan): Three years ago, Churu, a town of 1.2-lakh people in the Thar desert, was ranked India's dirtiest town by the Planning Commission. Two years ago, the overall district had over 40 per cent households with no toilet of their own. Today, the district is close to its goal of becoming open defecation-free,...

-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...

-Kafila.org This fact-finding exercise was coordinated by the CENTRE FOR POLICY ANALYSIS. Team members were the human rights activist and former civil servant Harsh Mander; former Director-General of the Border Security Force, E N Rammohan; Professor Kamal Mitra Chenoy of Jawaharlal Nehru University; National Integration Council member John Dayal; senior journalist Sukumar Muralidharan and CPA Director and senior editor Seema Mustafa. Introduction and Overview The first impression of the Muzaffarnagar countryside, now green...

-Newslaundry.com There's always outrage at the government ad spend on the death and birth centenaries of our erstwhile politicians. On Rajiv Gandhi's death centenary in 2013, we carried a report with incorrect figures. Following which, we filed a Right To Information (RTI) application to ask for the amount of advertising spend by the government on Rajiv Gandhi's death centenary ads in the Delhi editions of various English newspapers. When we contacted...