-The Times of India There's less than a year to go and a lot of ground to cover. To take stock of the progress made in implementation of RTE and to plan the way ahead, an alliance of over 10,000 grass-roots organizations working across the country, the RTE Forum, held a national meeting of "people's organizations". Apart from the 200 representatives working on RTE implementation in 20 states, members of theRTE...

India is all set to unveil a path-breaking test for diabetes that will save both money and blood. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is almost ready with a new digital finger-pricking blood sugar machine that will not require repeated use of testing strips. Significantly, it will cost less than Rs 2 per blood sample and require 1,000 times lesser blood than what glucose meters use now. Even better, it...

No toilet at home, no marriage - this had been the position of three would-be brides.    Now that their demand has been accepted, and each one of them were rewarded with a cash award of Rs. 2 lakh on Wednesday by Sulabh International, an organisation in the forefront of the sanitation movement. "I was embarrassed to know women relieve themselves in the open and worried something unpleasant might happen to me. Though...

-PTI Awarded Rs.2 lakh each by Sulabh International Low-cost sanitation organisation Sulabh International on Wednesday awarded Rs.2 lakh each to three brides who revolted against the absence of toilets at their in-laws’ residence. Sulabh founder Bindeshwar Pathak gave away the awards to Priyanka Bharti, Priyanka and Kumari Jyoti at a function organised at Vishnupur village, 30 km from the district headquarters. Modern toilets constructed Sulabh has constructed modern toilets for them. Dr. Pathak announced a “Sulabh...

-The Times of India The UPA is likely to rejig the Sonia Gandh-led National Advisory Council(NAC) with four members of the government think-tank for social sector reforms — Jean Dreze, M S Swaminathan, Harsh Mander and Madhav Gadgil — being dropped at the end of their second year tenure. Dreze, an economist and one of the most prominent faces of the NAC, who had strongly advocated for a universal food security, had...