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.

In collaboration with the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) is all set to start the first Census Data Centre on its campus.

New Delhi: East Delhi is the capital’s most developed district by most standards, newly released Census data shows.

Houselisting and Housing Only 78.4 per cent houses have provision for drinking water on premises, 3.3 per cent still defecate in the open.

New Delhi may be the capital of the country but 22 per cent of its people do not have access to a latrine in their premises and are forced to defecate in the open or use public toilet.

According to 'Houselisting and Housing Census 2011' for Delhi released today, 89.5 per cent of the 33.40 lakh households in Delhi have a latrine in their premises while 3.3 per cent are forced to defecate in open.

Rural development ministry ropes in Bollywood actor Vidya Balan to promote the use of toilets. Total sanitation, the official term for ending open defecation in the country, is not remotely close to either total or sanitation, show census data.

The figures supplied by state governments on the website of the Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) run by the Union Ministry for Rural Development have been exposed as false to a rather overwhelming degree. While the TSC data have 68 per cent sanitation for the country as a whole, the census found just 32.7 per cent of the country was so covered. Open defecation was the practice elsewhere.