-Economic and Political Weekly India's scheduled tribes are among the most deprived socio-economic groups and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme has great potential in tribal areas. While the Andhra Pradesh government has made an effort to ensure implementation of the scheme in the scheduled areas, the gap between administrative orders and the grass-roots level is wide. This article lists measures that could radically improve implementation of the scheme...

-Outlook   New Delhi: civil society, NGOs, socio- political organisations will be asked to provide volunteers to guard more than 11,000 unmanned railway crossings across the country to minimise death on tracks, Lok Sabha was told today. Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu said during Question Hour that a decision has been taken to publish advertisements inviting civil society, NGOs, socio-political organisations to provide volunteers to guard the unmanned railway crossings. Prabhu said 18,735 people have...

-The Asian Age There was a news report not so long ago that ICRISAT (International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics), an international organisation and part of the CGIAR (Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research) consortium, had entered into an agreement with Gubba Cold Storage Ltd. to set up a private seed bank, the first of its kind in India. No details were available of the terms and conditions under...

-The Hindu Attempt to commit suicide should stay on the statute book because suicide comes in conflict with the monopolistic power of the state to take away life You choose your country, you choose your spouse, you choose your profession, you choose your political masters, and you choose where you want to live and how. Die you must. But how to die and when: should that be a matter of choice as...

-The Hindustan Times The editor, a liberal man, is taken aback by my question. "I don't hire people on the basis of their caste but their ability," he informs me when I ask how many Dalits he has in his newsroom. Nearly 70 years after Independence, my question should have been irrelevant. But a caste survey by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) and the University of Maryland, United States,...