SHILLONG: Even though West Garo Hills district is the highest achiever in the State having done away with open defecation, it is still lagging behind in making schools ‘open defecation free’.

According to available statistics, 45 per cent schools in the district still lack sanitation facilities although during the year 2011 a total of 216 villages in the West Garo Hills were awarded the ‘Nirmal Gram Puraskar’.

Learn from Delhi’s experience, says Montek to other States

The Annual Plan for Delhi for 2012-13 was on Thursday finalised at Rs. 15,862 crore at a meeting between Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and State Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit. In his initial remarks, Mr Ahluwalia lauded Delhi’s performance in all sectors and highlighted a number of initiatives it has taken which have helped in expediting the pace of development. The Commission, he said, would suggest to other States to learn from the Delhi experience.

MUMBAI: It may be hard to believe but Mumbai recorded its slowest population growth in almost a century in the last decade.

Kohima: According to Census 2011 Provisional Population totals released on Friday last, Nagaland contributes 0.16 per cent to India’s total population and ranks 25th in the total population among Indian states.

The Census of India 2011- Provisional Population Totals Paper 2, Volume II of 2011 (Rural- Urban) distribution, Nagaland series 14 was released on Friday last by Directorate of Census Operations, Nagaland.

Amidst the high voltage campaign to tom-tom Bihar’s achievements for registering an unprecedented growth rate of 13.13 per cent for the year-2011-12, there exists a dark story. Almost half of the state’s population still lives below poverty line (BPL).

According to sources in the Planning Commission, the background note, prepared by the panel for the Plan (2012-13) discussion with Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday, around 48 per cent of the state’s population comes under BPL category of which 55.3 percent live in rural areas and 39.4 percent live in the urban areas.

Census details show spread of mobiles, TVs, bank accounts, even in poverty-stricken states household power connections still a big lack

The past decade has seen the weakest sections of the society make rapid gains in their material wellbeing, acquiring assets such as cell phones, televisions, two-wheelers and bank accounts, though almost half the population of scheduled castes and tribes (SC and ST) continue to live by the light of the humble kerosene lamp, much more than the national number of 31 per cent.

One striking feature of demographic changes in the state reflected in Census 2011 data is the sharp rise in the number of “census towns” from 93 in 2001 to 228 in 2011, indicating that people from

After the pet project of the former President PURA (provision of urban amenities in rural areas) failed to take off, the Centre has restructured it into PURA 2.0 to focus on rapidly urbanising rural areas, which are not being administered by municipal bodies. Unveiling PURA 2.0, Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh said the scheme would focus on Trishanku, a term he coined to describe neither rural nor urban, areas.

States appear lukewarm to bail out the Centre grappling with the “problem of plenty”, as there is no response to the food ministry’s proposal for advance lifting of foodgrains.