-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Water scarcity is fast becoming urban India's number one woe, with government's own data revealing that residents in 22 out of 32 major cities have to deal with daily shortages. The worst-hit city is Jamshedpur, where the gap between demand and supply is a yawning 70%. The crisis is acute in Kanpur, Asansol, Dhanbad, Meerut, Faridabad, Visakhapatnam, Madurai and Hyderabad - where supply fails to meet...

-The Hindu Absence of safe cycle tracks and lack of pavement networks have pushed people to motorised transport Across the world, in the wake of the fuel crisis and environmental challenges, cities are increasingly paying attention to bicycling and walking - non-motorised modes of transport (NMT). As studies show, if 5 per cent of the trips made in cities across the world shift from car to NMT, the savings in terms of...

-The Indian Express In Gujarat, growth relies on indebtedness. And relegates development. The Gujarat pattern of development has often been arraigned from the left because of its social deficits. Indeed, the state's social indicators do not match its economic performance. With 23 per cent of its citizens living below the poverty line in 2010, Gujarat does better than the Indian average - 29.8 per cent - but it reduced this proportion by...

-The Indian Express Holding back the RTI amendment is not the best way to address public concerns about party finance. There has been great civil society uproar over the Right to Information (Amendment) Bill, 2013, which aims to extricate political parties from mandatory public disclosures, and nullify the Central Information Commission's recent order. While passing the amendment would have been all too easy, given the broad political consensus, a last-minute turnaround in...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The rules of the game have changed for the political class, with the Supreme Court asking the government on Friday to enforce its order for immediate disqualification of SITting MPs, MLAs and MLCs convicted for an offence attracting a sentence of two years. "SITting Members of Parliament and state legislators are no longer protected by clause 4 of Section 8 of the Representation of People Act,"...