Stink over missing toilets: ministry initiates probe

CAG audit may be sought if states fail to disclose correct information, says secretary for drinking water and sanitation

Jharkhand proposes MGNREGA worker unions

Work demand under the rural employment programme is decreasing in the state

The laboratory of development

Agriculture Don't fix is the government's fix

Saga of two villages

Sukhomajri was a dirt-poor village in Haryana. It started pulling itself out of its hole in the late 1970s, making a dizzying ascent to …

The panchayat outrage

It was a vote for self-governance, not self-determination. No panchayat election in the country ever created as much hype as that of Jammu and …

CAG indicts Bihar for irregularities in rural job scheme implementation

Only 35 per cent beneficiaries got jobs; half of civil work undertaken left incomplete

A hard rain’s falling

Sayantan Bera tells the story of a man and a state, paralysed inside the remote islands of Sundarbans

When markets do work

Hiware Bazar - A village with 54 millionaires

Hiware Bazar, a village in Maharashtra's drought-prone Ahmednagar district, was sliding into an abyss after degrading its environment. But in …

Hunger games – it’s the real India show

The road ahead

Jute, coir and waste material are set to make rural roads economic and eco-friendly

Operation Saranda: from Maoists to Miners

India’s mysterious diseases: ‘We need a public health system’

Human health management is dismally low in India, says T Jacob John, virologist and former professor at Christian Medical College, Vellore

Inheritance of loss

Whatever the poverty line, 50 per cent people in India will remain poor

Last ditch attempt

UPA gives sops under MGNREGS to attract rural voters ahead of elections

Funds for social welfare cut drastically in revised budget estimates

Ministers write protest letters to prime minister and finance minister, saying it would greatly impact ongoing schemes

RTI activists’ murders: Jairam Ramesh demands prompt action, compensation to families

Rural development minister’s letter to Nitish Kumar includes four suggestions for better implementation of social welfare schemes

Two Andhra villages get bamboo rights

The gram panchayat can earn up to Rs 1 crore a year, says Jairam Ramesh

Who are the poor?

Identifying the poor and measuring the poverty is a contentious issue. Poverty line is not a sacred line. At best, it indicates how far the …

GDP ignores cost to the environment

Can this flawed measure of growth be reversed?

Poverty level will increase if health expenditure included

Planning Commission factors in less than one rupee a day as health expenditure in its affidavit to the apex court

Who are the poor?

Planning Commission's poverty estimates do not reflect ground reality

Tricks of diminishing returns

Clever calculations and the great wall of bureaucracy

Tryst with rain

Following the monsoon failure of 1999-2000, two states - Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh - launched crash programmes to encourage water harvesting. An …