-The Hindu India is the world's largest open air lavatory with over 620 million people practising open defecation in the country. Seeking to address this persisting problem, the UPA government has widened the scope of its flagship Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) to include works relating to rural sanitation in collaboration with the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyaan (NBA) Scheme. This interlinking is aimed at strengthening the base of rural...

-The Hindu Business Line     Whatever the criticisms against the UPA government may be, its effort to provide employment to large sections of the population under the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act must be lauded. Yet, after the initial success of the scheme, the enthusiasm of the Central government itself seems to have diminished in its second term in power. How palpable is the shift to lower gear? Representatives of the UPA...

-Live Mint The Indian state has done little to provide preventive public health services New data released by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) have once again underlined the abysmal state of sanitation in the country, particularly in rural India where two-thirds of the country lives. Only 32% of rural households have their own toilets, according to the recently released results of a large-scale survey conducted by NSSO in 2012. An additional...

-The Times of India Gujarat's much-touted Chiranjeevi Yojana, launched in 2006 to reduce maternal and infant mortality rates in BPL households, has not had any significant impact, says a new study by Duke University. The programme, which subsidizes the cost of delivery at designated private sector hospitals, has not led to increased probability of institutional child-delivery. Also, analyses of Household Expenditure of women who used the subsidized delivery scheme in private hospitals...

-The Times of India KOLKATA: You must have been complaining about rise in prices across categories - food or non-food. What you have not realized is West Bengal has become one of the most expensive states in India. Consumer price indices for October this year, filed with the Parliament barely a fortnight back, shows that Bengal's figure is now the second highest. Consumer price indices (CPI) for the rural Bengal during October...