KEY TRENDS   • According to National Sample Survey report no. 583: Persons with Disabilities in India, the percentage of persons with disability who received aid/help from Government was 21.8 percent, 1.8 percent received aid/help from organisation other than Government and another 76.4 percent did not receive aid/ help *8   • As per National Family Health Survey-4 (NFHS-4), the Under-five Mortality Rate (U5MR) was 57.2 per 1,000 live births (for the non-STs it was 38.5)...

-PTI The government today approved road projects worth Rs 4,620 crore in Assam and Madhya Pradesh for the widening of National Highways. All the four projects, including three in Assam for widening of stretches of National Highways 37 under Special Accelerated Road Development Programme in North Eastern Region (SARDP-NE) at a cost of Rs 1,933 crore, were approved by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA). "The CCEA has given its approval for...

-The Hindu   The water markets of Marathwada are booming. In the town of Jalna alone, tanker owners transact between Rs.6 million and Rs.7.5 million in water sales each day Thirst is Marathwada's greatest crop this season. Forget sugarcane. Thirst, human and industrial, eclipses anything else. Those harvesting it reap tens of millions of rupees each day across the region. The van loads of dried-out cane you see on the roads could end...

-The Telegraph India is not creating enough productive jobs — and the spirit of enterprise is being strangled by excessive and onerous labour laws. The Economic Survey tabled in Parliament today said: “India has to focus on an agenda to create productive jobs outside agriculture, which will help us reap the demographic dividend and also improve livelihoods in agriculture.” The survey, which singled out job creation for special mention with an entire chapter...

-The Business Standard Railway engineers would help gram panchayats in developing estimates of the work and in training workers Union Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal today announced a partnership between Indian Railways and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in his budget speech. "I thank (Minister of Rural Development) Jairam Ramesh for agreeing to the railways' request to partner in some of the rail-related activities under MGNREGS," he said. Bansal...