-The Indian Express New Delhi: Home to one-fourth of the world's visually-challenged persons, India will play a key role in negotiating a historic international treaty next month that will ensure that the community's access to globally-published material is not stymied by rigid copyright rules. The Extraordinary General Assembly of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has called a diplomatic conference in June (17th-28 th) 2013 in Marrakesh, Morocco, to conclude the WIPO...

A recent statistical study by Indian researchers suggest that the MNREGA program in rural Andhra Pradesh might be having a positive effect on school enrolment and grades by improving the bargaining power of women within their household, as a consequence of earning wages in the rural job security program. The study is based on data from rural households in 5 districts in Andhra Pradesh and comprised of 3006 children, comparing...

-The Hindu The south leads in the number of medical and nursing seats, with for-profit private colleges dominating the scene. It will take major capacity expansion in the government sector to meet WHO norms on access to health professionals. India has achieved major organisational and technological successes but the health system's performance is abysmal. This cannot be attributed to poverty. It is poor health that places India 134th in the Human Development...

-The Telegraph Calcutta: The Bengal government will seek Calcutta High Court's permission to appoint administrators to run the three-tier panchayat system if rural polls can't be held before the term of the elected bodies ends. The term of most gram panchayats - the lowest tier - ends on June 25. If new bodies are to be formed before that, polls have to be notified by May 17, a possibility officials at Writers'...

-The Hindustan Times Patna: Union rural Development minister Jairam Ramesh has called for "serious government response" and "monitoring at the highest level" in the cases of violent attacks on whistleblowers in Bihar. He said his ministry was working on a ‘protocol' for whistleblowers, and that would soon be applicable to the entire country. In a letter to chief minister Nitish Kumar, Ramesh said whistleblowers and their families were facing constant torture and...