-The Hindu Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tables statement in Lok Sabha. Commerce Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, rejected charges by the opposition parties that the government was unable to protect India’s interests at the recently concluded Nairobi Ministerial Conference of the WTO. “India negotiated hard to ensure that the WTO continues to place the interests of developing countries and LDCs at the centre of its agenda,” according to a statement tabled by Ms. Sitharaman, who...

-The Hindu Agrarian distress has a cascading effect on all other businesses in the district ANANTAPUR (Andhra Pradesh): The year bygone, so far, has been one of sorrow for the poor of the district, with several of them committing suicide out of desperation and hopelessness. According to estimates of different political parties and social organisations, who have also done field level verification of the reports of suicides, no fewer than 150 suicides —...

-The Hindu What the ‘juvenile’ in the Delhi gang rape case will be going back to will be state surveillance despite having served his legal time, threats of vigilante justice, social exclusion and poverty The debate on the Juvenile Justice Bill had been getting louder, with several developments unfolding in the horrific December 16, 2012 Delhi gang rape case, till the Rajya Sabha finally passed it on Tuesday. Ahead of release of ‘Raju’...

-Hindustan Times Nearly half of what the average Indian earns she spends on food. And when food prices rise, the average Indian’s budget feels the strain. In November, the consumer food price index, which tracks food prices at retail sales points, was up 6.07% as compared to 5.25% in October. Even data relating to the Wholesale Price Index (WPI), which tracks prices of commodities when they are traded in bulk, show...

-The Hindu A complex picture emerges from the analysis of a year of Mumbai sessions court rulings on sexual assault: false cases foisted by parents, wide variation in the sentences, societal prejudices and vulnerabilities at play, and a tendency for investigating high-profile cases with greater rigour Over half of all sexual assault cases decided by Mumbai’s sessions courts in 2015 involved either parents filing cases against young couples who had eloped, or...