-The Hindu They may not need to file returns of their assets for now, but they remain under the ambit of the Lokpal Act New Delhi/ Chennai: Bowing to demands from various quarters — NGOs and political, corporate and philanthropic institutions — the Centre swiftly moved an amendment to address concerns arising from the mandatory declaration of assets and liabilities under the Lok Pal and Lokayukta Act, 2013. While the amended Act continues...

-TheWire.in Married women are required to submit a marriage certificate or affidavit at the time of passport creation or renewal, though these documents are not demanded of married men. New Delhi: Despite senior BJP leader Sushma Swaraj being at the helm in the Ministry of External Affairs, women passport applicants continue to face discrimination and harassment at regional passport offices and seva kendras across the country. Women applying for passports are finding that...

-HuffingtonPost.in NEW DELHI: Disregarding the Supreme Court order, which limited linking the Aadhaar card to six government schemes, the University Grants Commission has made it "mandatory" for students to provide biometric data before they can avail of "government subsidies, scholarships and fellowships." On June 29, 2016, UGC secretary Jaspal S. Sandhu sent a letter to Vice-Chancellors of all universities and institutes, which said that Aadhaar has been made "mandatory for disbursement of...

-Livemint.com Only Chhattisgarh and Odisha have shown extraordinary success in making public distribution system work efficiently and equitably Across thousands of schools in India, expensive computers, printers and scanners are gathering dust. In many panchayats and other local bodies, such hardwares remain unused. Meanwhile, tonnes of government orders and circulars continue to be scanned and uploaded on official websites, which serve absolutely no purpose to anyone. Computerization, digitization and automation are often seen...

-Hindustan Times New Delhi: A clutch of pesticides that could be carcinogenic and banned in many countries will continue their run in India, though a government panel has recently decided to ban 18 insect killers hazardous to human health and prohibited abroad. This is the first time a decision to ban such a big number of pesticides was taken. There are 261 pesticides registered in India but only 28 had been banned...