-The New Indian Express Annual report of women’s rights panel did not mention how many cases were resovled NEW DELHI: Nearly 55 per cent of complainants from across the country who reached out to the National Commission for Women (NCW) seeking its intervention in various matters, belonged to Uttar Pradesh. These details have come out through the commission’s annual report for 2017-18 that has just been compiled. The complaints by women or their relatives...

Non-payment of MGNREGA wages on time to workers and non-revision of daily wage rates, among other things, have kept the poor away from the programme in many states. When the notified daily wage rates under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (2005) Act (MGNREGA) for 2019-20 was announced on 26th March 2019, it became clear that the existing wage rates were not revised (viz. as compared to 2018-19) in...

-The Telegraph As one Manipuri woman put it, 'Everybody talks of women’s empowerment, yet they have not fielded any woman candidate' ‘My vote matters’. This is how the Election Commission is exhorting the electorate “in our ageless democracy,” in a poster depicting two tribal women from Sikkim. “The lines on my face do not matter, the ink on my finger does,” it says. The irony is that the participation of women candidates, especially...

-Frontline.in The cash transfer schemes the Narendra Modi government and several State governments have announced to woo the peasantry ahead of the election, like the loan waivers, short-change farmers because they avoid the vital issue of remunerative prices for farm produce. In a sudden flurry of new-found concern for the long-suffering Indian peasant, parties across the political spectrum are desperately trying to woo this section of society. In fact, ever since...

-The Hindu A new survey ahead of elections shows lack of jobs is single biggest worry Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, a public opinion survey in 12 states has found that political parties are the most distrusted political institutions in India. It also found that one in five of those surveyed felt that unemployment is the single biggest issue facing the country today. The survey, Politics and Society between Elections 2019, found...