-The Times of India   Nearly one in every six urban Indian residents lives in a slum, newly released Census data shows. The new numbers are significantly lower than the slum growth that had been projected for India. "Our own projections were that the all-India slum population would be 27.5% by 2011, so the new data comes as a pleasant surprise," Arun Kumar Misra, secretary in the ministry of housing and urban poverty...

-Live Mint Indians who live in slums are not very different from those who live elsewhere, in terms of ownership of assets Indians who live in slums are not very different from those who live elsewhere, in terms of their ownership of assets, including consumer products and houses, although they may not have the same access to water and sanitation. The finding, reflected in Census 2011 data that was released on Thursday, reinforces...

-PTI   Approximately 68 million Indians are living in slums, according to a government census. Releasing the first such census report on slum households prepared by the Registrar General of India, Union Housing and urban poverty alleviation minister Ajay Maken today said that majority of them were located in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. Presenting the highlights of the report, Census Commissioner C Chandramouli said,...

-The Indian Express The annual subsidy bill for the UPA’s proposed food guarantee law has been estimated at Rs 1,24,747.1 crore, 38.6 per cent over the budgeted food subsidy of Rs 90,000 crore for next year. An alarmed finance ministry is learnt to have red-flagged some major changes proposed in the original National Food Security Bill, sources said. It has objected to the proposal to do away with the original categorisation of beneficiaries...

-The Times of India The Reserve Bank of India having opened the window for new bank licences, the postal department is finalizing the blueprint to set up a bank of its own at your neighbourhood post office, a move that will challenge the dominance of large public sector lenders in smaller Towns and rural India. While the department already has a balance sheet of Rs 6.18 lakh crore, which includes deposits of...