-The Hindu “Unions should press for things like public health, nutrition, in addition to [addressing] issue of secularity” Nobel laureate Amartya Sen on Saturday exhorted trade unions to expand their role to address injustice in general, covering aspects like inequalities in income, healthcare, education and nutrition. Speaking at the 90 anniversary celebration of the Reserve Bank Employees Association, he said unions could take their role further as their identity cut across religious sects,...

-Economic and Political Weekly The proposed legislation on the National Food Security Act has been steadily watered down since it was fi rst mooted in 2009. The Parliamentary Standing Committee that examined the 2011 Bill has disappointingly continued with "targeting". If the government passes the bill incorporating the committee's suggestions, a historic opportunity to combat hunger and malnutrition would be lost. Ankita Aggarwal (aggarwal.ankita87@gmail.com) is a Research Scholar at the Centre for...

-The Telegraph The world lauds us as the largest democracy. Yet, how much of a democracy are we and where must we improve? Elections and their consequences: We have regular elections. They are supervised with increasing effectiveness as far as booth capturing, bogus voters and violence are concerned. The influence of money has not waned; if anything, it has increased. It is not as it used to be, for paying voters only....

-Outlook Jalna: The chief judicial magistrate has ordered the Kadim Jalna police to register a case against the chief officer of the Jalna Municipal Council (JMC) for allegedly abusing and threatening Right to Information (RTI) activist Ajit Kothari. According to the case filed, on March 19, 2010, RTI activist Kothari had filed an application with the chief officer and sought information regarding the installation of borewells in the town, but JMC chief...

-The Business Standard Rich coal reserves found in Dharamjaigarh in Chhattisgarh's Raigarh district have thrown the lives of the 15,000 Bangladeshi settlers in turmoil Kalipada Das was 12 years old when his parents slipped into India from Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) after Partition in the early fifties. As violence rocked parts of Bangladesh, Das and his parents sailed across Khulna River to reach a railway station from where they hoped to board...