India's landmark Right to Information Legislation is called the biggest single step since independence to build transparency in governance. However, its remarkable success is owed only to just 0.3 per cent of Indians who file RTI applications. It's anybody's guess as to what would be the impact if even one or two per cent of Indians began to ask tough questions to hold their rulers accountable. It is noteworthy that...

-Live Mint Not only have Bihar and Odisha grown faster they have also ensured that benefits accrue to the poorest; in Gujarat, growth has bypassed the poor Going by logic, the poor in richer states should be better off than their counterparts living in poorer states. This is especially so when the country is seeing a welcome trend: Income growth in rural areas and poverty reduction has witnessed unprecedented acceleration. Not necessarily. Not...

-The Hindustan Times Mumbai: Indian companies have acquired land more than nine times the size of Delhi on foreign shores, as cultivable land at home is lost to urbanisation, industry and infrastructure projects. Land Matrix, a global land monitoring initiative that tracks land dealings worldwide, placed India among the top 10 countries that have acquired large tracts of land abroad, primarily for agriculture, in Africa and Asia. The country ranks eighth,...

-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,...

-The Times of India In a striking irony, the number of hungry people in the world was estimated at 842 million in 2011-13 by the Global Hunger Index (GHI) report released on Monday even as world cereal production was estimated at a near record level of 2,489 million metric tons a few days ago. About a quarter of the world's hungry, or 210 million, are in India alone. The number of hungry...