-The Hindu   Mumbai: Taking serious note of manual scavenging in the pilgrim town of Pandharpur here, the Bombay High Court on Wednesday directed the State government to release Rs. 5 crore immediately to the municipal council to help deploy mobile toilets on a war footing. The government should file a compliance report by May 8. "How can you justify employing human beings to carry out manual scavenging in this day and age?...

-The Hindu   Chennai (Tamil Nadu): Chief Electoral Officer Praveen Kumar on Wednesday said the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) was under the scanner as there were complaints of diversion of workers to public meetings of political parties. At a press conference here, the CEO said the Returning Officer of each constituency had been asked to keep a watch on the work under the scheme. "We have asked them to...

-The Hindu   ‘An offshoot of trickle-down urbanisation, census towns like Hatia and Hinjewadi can be engines of change for rural areas' Hatia, Ranchi: At the southern edge of Ranchi city lies Hatia, and not all of its residents are sure if theirs is a village or part of Ranchi city's sprawl into its surrounding rural areas. "It's still a village. The panchayat has the land records," says Santosh Majhi, standing by the side...

-The Hindu A strong whistle-blower protection law in India would expose financial corruption in a way that reinforces ethical business practices In 2013, generic pharmaceutical company Ranbaxy pleaded guilty to seven criminal felonies for drug manufacturing fraud and agreed to cough up an unprecedented $500 million in fines. The case against Ranbaxy was significant not only for being a successful prosecution of a powerful India corporation. It also marked the triumph of Dinesh...

-The Hindustan Times Maharashtra: Vidarbha is an unforgiving place, parched, dry and restive. It is a place of waiting - for the rains, for dams, for a harvest that may never come. Lately, there's been a storm brewing in these 11 arid districts "All of Maharashtra is getting richer, but here in Vidarbha, everything is standing still," says Sachin Gawande, 30, a graduate and farmer from Risod town in Akola. "Ours remains...