-The Hindu The West Bengal Government will introduce a Bill in the upcoming Budget Session of the State Assembly to ensure that public services are delivered to people on time, said Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee here on Wednesday. Fines will be imposed on government servants if it is found that services are not delivered on time, she told journalists after a Cabinet meeting. The legislation, Paschim Banga Lok Parisheba Adhikar Bill, 2013 (West...

-Outlook Ranchi: CPI (M) General Secretary Prakash Karat today called for an immediate end to the "division" of people on the lines of below poverty line, above poverty line, and advocated for universal Public Distribution System (PDS). "Now the people are being divided and are given Ration cards on the lines of BPL, APL and Antyodaya, which should be stopped immediately," Karat said at a meeting of the party's Sangharsh Sandesh Jatha...

-The Hindu Rajouri /Janjgir Champa: Exactly a year ago last February, 78 migrants working in bonded debt in brick kilns in Jammu and Kashmir made a desperate bid to start a new life. Sahodara Bai, who had worked at the kiln with her husband and eight children for 25 years, returned from a rare visit to her village in the plains in Chhattisgarh with a pamphlet. “The parchaa (pamphlet) had the name...

-Deccan Herald As primitive tribes continue to be in a state of acute poverty, ‘schedule area’ status for settlements of evicted tribals from Nagarahole National Park will favour their development. The status will also solve the problem of representation of tribals in political institutions, which will help them benefit from the welfare programmes aimed at them, said Muzaffar Assadi, Chairman of the High Court-appointed Committee on Tribal Issues of Rajiv Gandhi...

-The Hindu Koynanagar (Maharashtra): First, a dam, then an earthquake and finally a tiger reserve — families in Satara district’s Koyna have been displaced thrice in one generation. In 1960, the people had to move, paving the way for the Koyna dam; in 1967 following the earthquake and then for the Koyna tiger reserve in 1985, says Jagannath Vibhute, an activist of the Shramik Mukti Dal and one of the many...