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The poet who gave Umrao Jaan her voice
- Akhlaq Mohammed Khan, better known as Shahryar, who breathed his last in Aligarh on Monday after a prolonged battle with cancer, straddled the worlds of pure and popular poetry with equal ease.
- Shahryar was honoured with the Jnanpith Award in 2008 and the Sahitya Akademi Award for ‘Khwab ka Dar Band Hai.'
Congress' pet project, rural job scheme, faces grant cut
- Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, is facing a big cut in its budgetary grant for the first time since its launch in 2006.
- The budgetary support for the current financial year was a tad lower at Rs. 40,000 crore but the progress of the MGNREGS has been so bad that the UPA government is now set to slash the allocation for the job scheme for the poor for the 2012-13 financial year by 10 to 20 per cent.
- The MoRD is keen on ensuring that the allocation for the Ministry and for drinking water and sanitation is in no way less than the annual grant of Rs. 88,000 crore provided for in 2011-12.
- According to the latest statistics, about 60 per cent of the population practises open defecation.
- Mr. Ramesh is aiming for a higher allocation for improving drinking water facilities and setting up toilets for better hygiene and cleanliness. If his proposal gets the nod, the budgetary allocation for ministries under his control will exceed Rs. 90,000 crore.
India woman leaves home for lack of toilet
- Anita Narre left husband Shivram's home two days after her marriage in May last year because the house had no toilet.
- She returned eight days later after Shivram, a daily wage worker, built one with savings and aid from villagers.
- More than half-a-billion Indians still lack access to basic sanitation.
- The law making toilets mandatory has been introduced in several states as part of the "sanitation for all" drive by the Indian government.
- The programme aims to eradicate the practice of open defecation, which is common in rural and poor urban areas of India.
- Special funds are made available for people to construct toilets to promote hygiene and eradicate the practice of faeces collection - or scavenging - which is mainly carried out by low-caste people.
