-The Hindu For any law to truly liberate those trapped in manual scavenging, their numbers must first be established by a comprehensive survey Everybody declares with a full heart, and in a low voice, that it is a national shame. From Manmohan Singh and Pratibha Patil to Mukesh Ambani and Aamir Khan, the last mentioned a new convert to the Dalit cause, there is no dearth of people queuing up to take...

-Frontline There are no effective vaccines against Japanese encephalitis, but its spread can be controlled in India through vector management.  JAPANESE ENCEPHALITIS, or JE, has become endemic in many parts of the country, occurring repeatedly in epidemic form in many of them—for instance, in parts of Gorakhpur in northern Uttar Pradesh. One can expect JE-type epidemics year after year in States where prolonged drought-like conditions are followed by heavy monsoons. This leads to...

-The Times of India CHENNAI: India ranks second globally in accessing private details of its citizens, next only to the US, if the latest data from Google is to be believed. The transparency report by the internet search giant lists out requests it received from governments across the world to access information on the users of its various services. In the first six months of 2012, India made 2,319 requests involving 3,467...

-Outlook Child victims of sexual offences will now get swift and adequate compensation as well as immediate medical care and rehabilitaion with the Government today notifying new rules. As per the new rules under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, state governments shall pay compensation ordered by Special Court within 30 days of receipt court orders, officials said. Special Courts would award compensation to child after taking into account a host...

-The Hindu Kerala’s Kudumbashree network and the rural employment guarantee scheme have converged to provide a unique model of empowerment An incredible story of empowerment has been unfolding in the wake of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) programme in the State of Kerala. This is the story of how a socially engineered convergence of the scheme with panchayati raj institutions and the State sponsored community network of poor...