-Down to Earth Gives details to finance ministry on the impact of revised budget estimates on individual schemes The steep cut in budgetary allocations for social welfare schemes in an election year seems to have become a great cause of worry for Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh. He has shot off a letter to finance minister P Chidambaram, expressing displeasure over the proposed Rs 15,000 crore funds cut in rural development...

-The Hindu A unique cell phone-based networking system in Chhattisgarh helps Adivasi Gonds share local news and air grievances. Deep in the jungles of Chhattisgarh, a straightforward, earthy man named Naresh Bunkar, field co-ordinator of the Adivasi Santha Manch, picks up his mobile phone and dials +918050068000, a long-distance number in Bangalore. He immediately cuts off and waits. Within seconds, he gets a call from the dialled number, and he hears a...

-The Hindu To bring up proportion of fully immunised children to 100 % THIRUVANANTHAPURAM (Kerala): The Health Department will kick off an intensive immunisation campaign across districts this week to bring up the proportion of fully immunised children to one hundred per cent in the State. The campaign is being launched on Monday in Malappuram, which has been consistently lagging behind in all immunisation and related activities and has the highest proportion of...

-The Hindustan Times The country's intelligence agencies are out to scuttle a law that's being drafted to protect your privacy. The Intelligence Bureau and the Research and Analysis Wing have told the government to water down the proposed law that makes it a crime to leak sensitive personal information collected by government departments and the private sector. The agencies conveyed their views to national security adviser Shivshankar Menon at a recent meeting at...

-The Business Standard India has to come to terms with a growing obesity problem that is rapidly becoming a crisis Obesity, an epidemic often thought to be exclusive to wealthy countries, is becoming a rapidly growing crisis for India. The National Family Health Survey of 2006 revealed that roughly one in four urban Indians was overweight or obese, and several more recent studies indicate that these numbers are increasing. A new study...