-The Hindu Pit emptying must become central to India’s efforts to eliminate open defecation Both Ambedkar and Gandhi protested the practice of untouchability by encouraging upper castes to deal with their own waste. Last weekend, the Secretary of the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Parameswaran Iyer, took up their call for action by emptying the decomposed waste from a twin-pit latrine in Warangal district, Telangana. Mr. Iyer deserves praise for calling...

-The Indian Express Demonetisation shows India’s social welfare measures like MGNREGS to be worryingly patchy Following the announcement of demonetisation, reports of its devastating impact on informal sector workers, farmers and migrants began to pour in from across the country. Seeking evidence on two questions — do social security measures work in the face of such an economic shock, and do these programmes themselves face disruption because of demonetisation — we conducted...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: A pleasant surprise awaits you the next time you visit a city police station with a comPLAint. Instead of a grumpy, disinterested policeman, you are likely to have a smart young woman to hear you out and direct you on how to go about registering a comPLAint. In an image makeover bid, police commissioner Amulya Patnaik has appointed women public facilitation officers who would be the...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: A revamped central housing scheme promising shelter for all rural families by 2022 has no room for the landless. Dalits, Adivasis and nomadic tribes who have no land will be forced live without dignity as the Centre has discontinued assistance to landless people for purchasing land under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Gramin (PMAY-G), activists say. It has also dropped PLAns for a law to give plots to the...

-The Indian Express Suspension of work during festivals to ensure a cleaner Ganga and cow vigilantism, which has led to closure of several abattoirs and brought raw hide supply to half, have made things worse. Kanpur: The Namami Ganga Project has hurt leather workshop owner Aqueel Ahmed, 27. His earnings have dwindled with the crackdown on factories polluting the river in Kanpur’s Jajmau area. A kilometre away, priest Ramesh Prasad Tiwari,...