-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Supreme Court has asked the Centre and states to pay employees with hearing impairment the SAMe monthly transport allowance they have been paying the visually and physically challenged, saying the law didn't allow "discrimination" based on disabilities. The court's human touch came on a plea by the Deaf Employees Welfare Association, which said that except for Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, no other state was extending them the...

-The Hindu The Aam Aadmi Party's proposal of 666 litres of free water a day raises the alarming prospect of further disadvantaging the already deprived sections of Delhi who get no piped water at all The Twelfth Five Year Plan has proposed a paradigm shift in water management in India. One of our key proposals relates to urban water. In many ways, it could be said that the crisis of water and...

-The Indian Express Nagpur: Seven years after the suicide spiral in Vidarbha's six cotton-growing districts touched a record 1,449 in 2006, here's something to celebrate the new year with: the number of deaths fell to about half that number in 2013. The year gone by recorded only 752 suicides , although that number could rise by a few due to some late reporting. It also reflects a markedly improving suicide-to-population ratio considering...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Aam Aadmi Party on Monday kept its promise of free water - 20 kilolitres per month or an average of about 660 litres a day per family - but it came with a rider and a whammy for bigger water consumers. The rider is that if consumption exceeds 20 kl, you would be billed for the entire water consumed, and the whammy was that...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: A fact-finding team of intellectuals from JNU and Delhi University (DU), hit out at the SAMajwadi Party government in UP, alleging it has outsourced relief work for Muzaffarnagar riot victims to Muslim communal organizations like the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind. After several visits to riot-ravaged Muzaffarnagar and Shamli districts, the team comprising Dr Mohan Rao and oncologist Dr Vikas Bajpai, and Hindu College professor Ish Mishra released its...