-The Telegraph A jump in the Centre's annual social welfare spending from Rs 7,500 crore in 1991 to Rs 3 lakh crore now has failed to make much difference on the ground because panchayati raj institutions are being kept away from implementation of the schemes, a committee has found. The committee headed by senior Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar, in its report released on the eve of National panchayat Day, pitched for...

-Live Mint The experience of Kerala and Tripura shows how panchayati raj can help in the empowerment of women Chulubari (Tripura)/Kanjikuzhy (Kerala): Her relatives warned Hena Das, a resident of Chulubari in Tripura, against taking up political office because it wasn't "meant for women". Das disregarded the warnings. Two years on, she has no regrets. She also has no male colleagues; her fellow representatives on the board of an 12-member panchayat are all...

-NDTV Former Chief Justice of India Justice Jagdish Sharan Verma, who headed a three-member panel to examine laws on crimes against women, died today due to multiple organ failure. He was 80. The former Chief Justice of India died at Gurgaon's Medanta Hospital. "Justice Verma was admitted to the hospital on Friday with complaint of liver failure. He died at 9.30 pm of liver failure and bleeding in the stomach," Medanta's official spokesperson...

-Live Mint West Bengal chief minister dashes Saradha depositors' hopes of any immediate state-assisted recovery Kolkata: What has gone, has gone," West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee told depositors of the Saradha Group, dashing their hopes of any immediate state-assisted recovery of dues from the floundering units of the group that collected the money. Banerjee launched two separate investigations and promised to introduce a new law to deal firmly with fraudulent financial...

-Live Mint It's obvious that Indian experience with local governance is not what it should have been, but a change is underway Later this week, the country will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the constitutional amendments that made it mandatory for the creation of panchayats-the village-level bodies that deliver self-governance. Most may not be aware that this could well have been the eve of its 25th anniversary, but for the three-vote defeat...