-Bloomberg The corpse of Indian farmer Bengali Singh burned to ash atop a blazing funeral pyre on the banks of the river Ganges in 2006. Five years later, the dead man was recorded as being paid by India's $33 billion rural jobs program to dig an irrigation canal in Jharkhand state. Officials in his village and the surrounding region used at least 500 identities, including those of Singh, a disabled child of...

-PTI Women in India are more likely to get prenatal care when pregnant with male babies, according to a groundbreaking study that has implications for girls' health and survival in patriarchal societies. The study by Leah Lakdawala of Michigan State University and Prashant Bharadwaj of the University of California, San Diego, suggests sex discrimination begins in the womb in male-dominated societies such as India. "It paints a pretty dire picture of what's happening,"...

-The Telegraph The activists of North East Students' Organisation (Neso) today staged demonstrations in all the states demanding immediate updating of National Register of Citizens (NRC) and repeal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act. In Guwahati, the activists of All Assam Students' Union (AASU), a constituent body of Neso, staged a demonstration in front of Raj Bhavan at Uzan Bazararmed with placards stating "Northeast cannot be dumping ground of illegal migrants,"...

-Frontline How far will the proposed women's bank help marginalised sections when women's SHGs get little support and find it hard even to open accounts in public sector banks? WHILE the recent announcement of a women's bank in the Union Budget has been touted as a progressive measure for the financial inclusion of women, no concrete measures have been forthcoming to make all existing public sector banks sensitive to the needs...

-First Post While the average Human Development Index (HDI) for the region is 0.558, below the world average of 0.693, South Asia saw the highest growth in the index between 2000 and 2012, according to the United Nations Human Development Report 2013. The region registered an annual growth of 1.43 percent in HDI, the highest compared to other regions. It also said that the developing countries as a whole are driving the...