-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Aam Aadmi Party on Monday kept its promise of free water - 20 kilolitres per month or an average of about 660 litres a day per family - but it came with a rider and a whammy for bigger water consumers. The rider is that if consumption exceeds 20 kl, you would be billed for the entire water consumed, and the whammy was that...

-The Hindu Business Line New Delhi: Hundreds of elderly Poor, who had assembled in Jantar Mantar in Delhi's biting cold, have turned their hopeful eyes toward the new Delhi Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal, to draw his attention to the plight 14 lakh elderly Poor in Delhi. In a letter written to Kejriwal, the Pension Parishad, led by Baba Adhav, Aruna Roy, Nikhil Dey among others, while congratulating Kejriwal, sought universalisation of pension...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Government spending of over Rs 46,000 crore on infrastructure augmentation under UPA's flagship JNNURM scheme seems to have improved key indicators of urban life in India and reached the Poorest of Poor. The recent National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) data shows that over 90% of slumdwellers feel water drainage, sewerage and garbage collection and disposal have improved. The NSSO also said 24% of slums had benefited...

-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 Hindustan Times Mahatma Gandhi urged us, in our moments of doubt, to recall the face of the Poorest person we may have seen and ask ourselves whether the step we are contemplating is likely be of any use to him or her. It is in this spirit that Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) was launched. It is perhaps the most ambitious social security and public works programme...