-The Hindu Increased rebel activity made it impossible for anyone to commute outside Jagargunda unless they left permanently, as the original inhabitants and the new entrants were marked as Salwa Judum supporters, and overtly boycotted by the Maoist-controlled villages surrounding the enclave. In Jagargunda, a large village in south Chhattisgarh, the villagers have been waiting for their winter rations for more than two months. Ordinarily, this would not be news but Jagargunda...

-The World Bank About 7.8 million rural people are expected to directly benefit from the project NEW DELHI: The government of India and the World Bank today signed a $500 million credit agreement to improve piped water supply and sanitation services through decentralized delivery systems in the states of Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh. The credit agreement for the Rural Water Supply and Sanitation (RWSS) Project for Low Income States was signed...

-The Business Standard Chulhas - cook stoves of poor women who collect sticks, twigs, leaves and every other biomass material they can find to cook meals - are today at the centre of failing international action. The concern is that women are breathing toxic emissions from the stove and that these same emissions are also adding to the world's climate change burden. The Global Burden of Disease Study 2010 established that...

-Down to Earth Report lacks region specific-information; methodology used is questionable, say experts in India A recent World Bank report recommending reduction of common pollutants like soot or black carbon and methane in the Himalayan region to slow global warming has drawn severe criticism from Indian scientists. Reducing emissions of black carbon and methane can not only save lives by reducing air pollutants in atmosphere but also bring down ice melt which is...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: An effort has begun to enrol India's street children in the Aadhaar programme, which will allow them in principle to obtain school admission, open bank accounts and secure government welfare. Some child rights activists, however, fear it will be a "cosmetic endeavour" in the absence of a government rehab programme, since few of these children have money to keep in banks or the resources to study. National Commission for...