-The Times of India MUMBAI: Often when there is a heavy traffic jam, cabbie Surya Prasad (name changed) turns to a friendly passenger, hands over a blank post card and requests him to write a few words in English addressed to his children residing back home in Khaspur village, near Patna. Even in today's era dominated by cell phones and email, millions of Indians continue to rely on postal services to reach...

-The Hindu Thanks to the caste system, India has always been an unequal society. What is even more worrying is that inequality appears to have deepened in the past two decades The Boston Consulting Group’s 15th annual report, “Winning the Growth Game: Global Wealth 2015”, has received extensive coverage in the Indian media. The report comes on top of the Global Wealth Databook 2014 from Credit Suisse, which provides a much more...

-The Hindu There is no organised conspiracy against NGOs. It is in the nature of power to exercise greater control, and exempt itself from accountability. The recent changes in the rules governing foreign funding of NGOs under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) have been widely discussed. The last word on it will perhaps never be written. The UPA government initiated this and we see some concrete changes now. Sifting through the...

-PTI New Delhi: A bench headed by U D Salvi, after taking suo moto cognisance of a newspaper report, issued notices to Delhi government, Delhi Jal Board (DJB), Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA), Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC), Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the four municipal corporations to reply to the malady of the citizens. The appalling picture of water supply in the capital has prompted the National Green Tribunal to seek...

-The Hindu The National Nutrition Monitoring Board (NNMB), set up in 1972, has been doing silent, and remarkable service to the nation. We tend to look at a nation’s progress increasingly, and almost exclusively, in terms of its economic and business statistics. India is now invited to the high table as a growing economy, with its annual financial growth rate of over 4 per cent. Internally too, we have setup many mechanisms,...