-The Indian Express The Rural Development Ministry has washed its hands of the matter while the RGI too seems reluctant to claim ownership. Amid growing demands to release the caste figures compiled as part of the Socio Economic and Caste Census, various government authorities having been passing the buck to one another. Officials have been saying the caste data, compiled from the first such census since 1931, is part of a...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The just released socio-economic and caste census data show more than 1.8 lakh manual scavengers in the country at a time virtually every state government has been denying their existence. Hundreds if not thousands in almost every state, including 2,500 in Bengal, told the surveyors they manually remove untreated human excreta from dry toilets, railway tracks and sewers - a practice banned by Parliament 22 years ago. State...

-The Telegraph Shillong: Rural areas in the Northeast have recorded a high percentage of unmarried people while the percentage of women-headed households is a little above the national average. According to the provisional data of the Socio-Economic and Caste Census, 2011, the percentage of people in rural Northeast who have "never married" is 47.42 per cent against the national average of 41.64 per cent. Among the northeastern states, including Sikkim, Nagaland has the...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: A new survey has shown that one in every two rural households is eligible for targeted government aid - a significant jump from two earlier estimates of those entitled to blanket benefits. The provisional socio-economic and caste census (SECC) data released by finance minister Arun Jaitley show that almost half the 17.91-crore households in rural India may be considered under various targeted welfare schemes, depending on their specific...

-Livemint.com All future allocations to poverty alleviation schemes will be based on Socio Economic and Caste Census findings New Delhi: The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government on Friday signalled a radical regime change in its spending on entitlements. The government released provisional data from the first Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) in seven decades and declared that it will form the basis for all future allocations under poverty alleviation programmes funded by...