-PTI Unhappy over Odisha's performance in implementing MGNREGA, Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh today asked the state government to sincerely utilise about Rs 5,000 crore central fund proposed for various rural schemes this year instead of complaining against the Centre. "It is a matter of regret that Odisha put up a poor show in implementing MGNREGA. Its performance is at the bottom after Bihar and Jharkhand though programmes like MGNREGA is...

-The Hindu If only laws could eliminate all that they prohibit, India would have been free of the scourge of manual scavenging decades ago. The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Bill, which is to be introduced in the monsoon session of Parliament, is another attempt to prevent employment of people in the cleaning, handling or carrying of human excreta. Despite the renewed stress on rehabilitation in the...

Overlooked and ignored, the problem of untouchability continues to be practised and perpetrated in the country. It is a lifetime of misery and humiliation, unimaginable for the relatively privileged but a daily reality for over one-fifth of the country’s 120 crore-plus population, as revealed succinctly in 22 short and easy to view videos under the Article 17 Campaign launched on April 14, 2012 by India Unheard, which claims to be...

There is evidence to show that growth is slowly becoming inclusive. But for the quality of life to improve, incomes must be complemented by infrastructure. For close to at least five years now inclusive growth has had a central place in the official discourse on the economy. The UPA II has itself worn its self-proclaimed success in delivering an inclusive growth as a badge of its effectiveness, not to mention its...

If this doesn’t raise a national stink, little else will. Around 3.5 crore toilets are missing in India, if official statistics are not meant to be flushed down the drain. The Union rural development ministry claims its Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) has delivered more than 8.71 crore latrines to households across villages over the past decade. But household data from the population census shows that only around 5.16 crore households had latrines...