-The Hindu India needs a meaningful electricity service, not merely a wire connection to every household No one would believe that simply owning a smart phone would be enough to go online and get connected - one would still need a data connection for that to happen. Similarly, it is time that we added a similar level of service to define electrification, a focus area for the government. A decade ago, a village...

-Accountability Initiative/ RaghuBytes Unless you have a blocked nose, I strongly suggest that you do not drive from Bhubaneshwar the capital of Orissa, to Kandamahal, a remote tribal district, particularly in the evenings. At twilight, when you begin to wind into the interior, you are greeted with the sight of the behinds of the entire population squatting on the roadside, faces turned away and shitting. We quickly wound up the windows...

-The Indian Express   Mewat (Haryana): Mewat district Villages: 443 Population: 10.9 lakh Literacy: 56.1% (women 37.6%) Sanitation status: Lack of toilets in schools identified as main reason for high dropout among girls, over a thousand toilets built in 2008-12. Rajakiya Kanya Madhyamik Pathshala in Mewat district's Shah Chaukha village has 786 girls on the rolls between nursery and Class VIII. In 2008, a toilet was constructed, but within months, it shut down for lack of...

-The Hindu Business Line New Delhi: The Crop Care Federation of India (CCFI) furthered its stand against foreign funded NGOs in India at an event here on Wednesday where controversial ecologist and former Greenpeace member Dr. Patrick Moore shared the stage with officials from the body. CCFI had decided to file a Rs. 50 crore defamation suit against Greenpeace's "baseless" report on pesticide residues in tea earlier this month. When asked by...

-The Hindustan Times The World Bank has submitted a detailed action plan that could help the government meet its objective of supplying power 24x7 in the country, with focus on bringing down distribution losses, improving infrastructure and expanding solar power. The proposal includes a state-wise turnaround plan for the key seven or eight states that together account for about 80% of the $20 billion (Rs 1.2 lakh crore) annual power distribution losses. Officials...