-The Times of India When Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi asked students of Bengaluru's Mount Carmel if the Modi government's Swachh Bharat Mission was working, he got a mixed response. An analysis of the campaign, well over a year now, shows the progress report is mixed too. Last year, on October 2, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the ambitious Swachh Bharat Mission, promising to provide toilets to Indian households that still...

In a recent Gazette notification, the Government of India has removed the controversial provisions made in the PDS Control Order that was issued in March, 2015. This MEAns that no more there will be a ceiling placed on the number of Antyodaya cards issued by any state.   The earlier order, which was issued by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution on 20 March, 2015, says that "when...

-Livemint.com In 1986, Italian journalist Carlo Petrini was outraged when McDonald’s opened its first outlet in Rome. He saw this as a threat to Italy’s culinary culture. He led a protest against the global industrialization of food, which culminated in the slow food movement. Starting in Rome, the movement is now a worldwide phenomenon. Edited excerpts from an interview at the Indigenous Terra Madre in Shillong: * What are the key achievements...

-The Hindu Business Line A CAG audit shows that the Centre and State governments have been criminally remiss over disaster management The unprecedented and continuing rains that have broken a 100-year record and have wreaked havoc in Chennai for over a week, highlight both elaborate rescue and relief efforts as well as gaps in the existing policy on disaster planning. It is true that swift deployment of the armed forces to evacuate...

-The Telegraph Paris: Rich nations led by the US have ensured that a key UN-mediated loss-and-damage mechanism to counter the effects of global warming would lose its teeth in the climate-change agreement expected to emerge here next week. The draft agreement, released today, has the words "compensation" and "liability" deleted from the text, nixing the possibility of holding the developed nations accountable for climate change-triggered disasters and forcing them to pay damages. The...