There can be little quarrel with the argument that India requires a comprehensive policy to prevent sex selection as put forward by National Advisory Council members Farah Naqvi and A.K. Shiva Kumar in The Hindu (“India & the sex selection conundrum,” January 24, 2012). That the use of sex selection technologies to abort female foetuses is linked to the increasing devaluation and disempowerment of women is well known. It is...

-BBC   A university in western India has postponed a seminar on Kashmir after Hindu groups objected to its "anti-nationalist" programme. The Symbiosis University in the city of Pune also cancelled the screening of a controversial film on the Indian army's role in Kashmir. University authorities say they will "revisit and rethink" the seminar programme to make it "more balanced". Kashmir is divided into Pakistani- and Indian-administered areas. Both nations claiming the region in its entirety....

-The Hindu   District in-charge Minister J. Krishna Palemar has claimed that there is nothing provocative in the speech of RSS leader Kalladka Prabhakar Bhat during Hindu Samajotsava that led to sporadic violence in Uppinangady on Sunday. “What is provocative in his speech? I have seen the video clippings of the programme. I did not find anything provocative. He has made such speeches earlier too,” Mr. Palemar told presspersons here on Thursday. “He...

-The Hindu   At a time when Karnataka is in the news for increase in the number of malnourished children, the Jana Arogya Andolana Karnataka (JAAK), an NGO working in the field of health, has come out with a portal on hunger The portal, www.republicofhunger.org, is aimed at conveying to people the depth of the problem and will serve as a watchdog, and examine the claims of the State Government regarding the issue...

-The Hindu   Suggest “necessary preventive” measures to safeguard the interest of workers   Trade union groups on Monday pitched for a worker-oriented Budget for 2012-13 aimed at removing poverty and unemployment and suggested “necessary preventive” measures to safeguard the interests of workers. At their meeting here with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee — the second in the series of the customary pre-Budget consultations — representatives of trade unions (TUs) proposed that wages of contract labour...