Usage of toilets in India is over 95 per cent, reveals new NSSO survey

This finding is, however, from a two-month rapid survey, considered too short by experts

Channels of change

Two villages in Uttar Pradesh have reversed the trend of migration by digging six kilometres of channels to bring water to drought-hit farms

Gaps galore

BRANCHING OUT: JOINT FOREST MANAGEMENT IN INDIA Nalini Sundar et al • Oxford University Press • New Delhi • 2001 • 289pp

In Short

Sunita's Bytes on Budget

Employment guarantee scheme not in sync with Mastapur's needs

Banks expand arms, but not through branches

Smart cards, biometric ATMs, mobile phones the new tools

INEVITABLE TRAGEDY

SOPAN JOSHI travels through Andhra Pradesh, only to find that beyond the immediate crisis of state-wide farmers' suicide lies one decade of …

Drought of equity

A large part of Maharashtra has been declared drought-hit. But distribution of water is quite incongruous. While the few who are politically and …

Drought hit

Jharkhand’s water table falls three metres in one year

Tsunami-hit farmers of Nagapattinam against prawn industry

Street food vendors threatened after court ruling

NDA introduces changes in MGNREGA

Rural development ministry to make social audit compulsory; create more durable assets in blocks and districts, instead of villages

Will rural flagship schemes change under Modi?

Officials admit that MGNREGS and rural road development programmes suffered shortcomings in UPA regime

Nepal's poor carry it off

As the Himalayan country's forestry scheme for the poor reaps rich dividends, its government entrusts more degraded areas to the underprivileged. …

Raw Deal

Scepticism hangs over Kerala's Tribal Rehabilitation and Development Mission and its master plan

The lake colony

Call them the "lakers". Some 10,000 of them. Parts of the Dal (land and water) belong to them. And when they feel the need to make a …

Labour exit

Labour shortage in agriculture forces Indian farmers to innovate to stay afloat

Uttar Pradesh to revive dry rivulets under MGNREGS

Revival of small river in Fatehpur district shows the way

The key: empowerment

Arouse people's interest in governance

TOURISM & HANDICRAFTS: Backs to the wall

Militancy's most distressing casualties

WATER: Fading glories

Kashmir's dying lakes are choking their dependants

FORESTS: Losing its soul

Raghuvansh Prasad, minister for rural development, on NREGA

Protests against retail chains getting into fruits and vegetables