Woman dies in Mahabubnagar  HYDERABAD: The swine flu virus, which was hitherto confined to a few cities, claimed its second victim in Mahabubnagar district on Thursday as the disease spread fast to new areas. A suspected patient was quarantined in Guntur. According to information reaching here, Saritha of Peddapur village in Veldanda mandal in Mahabubnagar district, died at a private hospital in Hyderabad in the early hours on Thursday. Saritha...

NEW DELHI: The State governments will set up special courts to try cases registered under the Scheduled Castes and Schedules Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act, 1989 with a view to bringing down pendency and improve the conviction rate. This was decided at the end of the two-day annual conference of the State Ministers for Social Welfare and Justice held here last week. The State governments also agreed to strengthen investigation...

Even to his many detractors, the untimely and tragic demise of AP Chief Minister Y.S.Rajasekhara Reddy (YSR--Telugus are fond of three-letter English acronyms for some reason), along with two helicopter pilots and two aides, must come as a shock. The web, airwaves, and print media are filled with obituaries and tributes, all sounding very similar themes. Principally, YSR is credited with being a successful politician with grassroots appeal, and for...

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is confident that the NREGS is his best bet to offset the drought but many grassroots activists are unsure of the scheme’s effectiveness, especially after some recent amendments. While the drought has spread to 246 districts, a heated debate rages on the poor peoples’ entitlements versus rural asset formation, even though in theory the two positions appear complementary. 14 organisations throughout the country are up in arms...

The concepts of multiplier and accelerator borrowed from macroeconomic theory illuminate the enormous potential of NREGA and help set standards that it must be judged by.  Over the last few months, just as the economy entered its current recessionary phase, the mainstream media, which till then had been uniformly unswerving in their antipathy to NREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Act), suddenly began to sing its praises. In all the gloom...