-The Telegraph The SR Hashim committee, formed in 2010 to help identify the urban poor, has suggested criteria to automatically count in and count out households from the poverty list and assign scores to the rest. According to the recommendations, ownership of computer with an Internet connection will exclude a household from the poverty list. The report has been submitted to the housing and urban poverty alleviation ministry. Sources in the ministry described...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Union environment ministry is expected to approve the K Kasturirangan panel report on Western Ghats and declare around 60,000 square kilometers of the southern hills - spanning across six states - as no-go area for mining, thermal power plants and heavily polluting industries. Sources in the ministry said, the process has begun to finalize the decision after receiving comments from public and state governments on...

-PTI Purulia: Thirteen infants have died at the Purulia Sadar Deben Mahato Hospital in Purulia since last Friday, the hospital said on Monday. Most of the infants were in the age group of 0-11 months, hospital superintendent Nilanjana Sen said. While eight deaths were reported on Friday, three infants died on Saturday and two deaths were reported on Sunday, she added. The infants, who were brought to the Sadar hospital from the block-level...

-The Times of India BANGALORE: Ever wondered why the country is fast losing its forest cover? The simple answer is that large tracts of forest land are being handed over to public and private agencies in the name of development projects. Digest this: According to recent data acquired through RTI from the ministry of environment and forests by a group of environmentalists, the extent of forest land being diverted across the country...

-The World Bank blog "Five years ago, I was no one," said Kunti Devi to me, sitting up straight against the wall of her one-room mud hut in Bara, a small village in India's eastern state of Bihar. "Now, people know me by my own name, not just by the name of my children." I was sitting on the floor, across from Devi, a mother of eight, who belonged to one of...