-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Fourteen non-Congress and non-BJP parties on Wednesday sought to present themselves as the bulwark against "communalism" ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections although they said the mobilization is not intended to be a "Third Front". The meeting was attended by Sharad Pawar's NCP, which with nine MPs is the largest Congress partner in Parliament, along with Left parties and regional outfits like SP, BJD, AIADMK...

-PTI NEW DELHI/GENEVA: Indicating a poor state of affairs on gender PARIty front, India was today ranked at a low 101st position on a global Gender Gap Index despite an improvement by four places since last year. The index, compiled by Geneva-based World Economic Forum (WEF), has ranked 136 countries on how well resources and opportunities are divided between men and women in four broad areas of economy, education, politics, education and...

-Newsclick.in Recent studies have shown that even as India fares better than many developing regions of the world on several indicators of growth and development such as GDP, per capita, Purchasing Power PARIty (PPP), literacy, life expectancy, etc., the number of malnourished children in India is significantly high. What explains this paradox? The Union Cabinet recently approved a multi-sectoral nutritional programme proposed by the Ministry of Women and Child Development to reduce...

-The Indian Express Ranchi: Over 15 districts spread across Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Orissa saw Durga Puja with a difference this festival season. Instead of the goddess slaying Mahishasur, the usual story of the Puja, this year, tribals and people belonging to Scheduled Castes and backward classes in these districts are celebrating the "demon king" as a non-Aryan inhabitant and a just king of the land, with Durga...

-Outlook The faecal matter hits the rotary blades, politically-but we're still staring at a sanitation disaster "Indians defecate everywhere. They defecate mostly besides the railway tracks. But they also defecate on the beaches; they defecate on the hills; they defecate on the river banks; they defecate on the streets; they never look for cover." -V.S. Naipaul An Area of Darkness, 1964 Not...