-Orissa Diary   Narayanpatna : About 5000 tribals from across Narayanpatna and Bandhugan blocks in Koraput district were stopped by heavily armed security forces at different places this morning as they were on their way to attend the two-day convention on preservation of tribal language and Culture.  This convention, planned for 21st and 22nd February 2012 at Balipeta Hatpada, was to be attended by 10,000 tribals from 12 different tribes across Koraput district....

-The Hindu   Fears expressed over misuse of Forest Rights Act Fearing that the Forest Rights Act, 2006, will be used as a populist programme leading to ineligible people benefitting from land grants, the Director-General of Forests has written to all Chief Secretaries of States to exercise restraint in granting land ownership records (pattas). Kaushik Mukherjee, Additional Chief Secretary to Government, Department of Forest, Ecology and Environment, said this at the national-level workshop on...

The recommendations of the Planning Commission’s High Level Expert Group on Access to Universal Healthcare are significant because they make explicit the need to contextualise health within the rights. However, the problem with the report is that it does not ask why many of the same recommendations that were made by previous committees have not been implemented. The HLEG neither recognises the problems, constraints and compulsions at the national, state...

-The Hindu   Legislative proceedings are usually far from stimulating and we have grown accustomed to MPs and MLAs stealing a surreptitious nap or even snoring defiantly to escape the tedium of debate. But the three Karnataka BJP ministers who were forced to resign Wednesday morning chose a most unusual way to escape what they regarded as an arid discussion on the drought situation in the State. Much to the embarrassment of...

-The Times of India A report prepared by a few NGOs on child labour in Rajasthan has claimed that women working in mining or stone crushing units often give opium to their infants to keep them quiet while they are working. "Many women bring their infants to the work site if they have no other childcare arrangement. It is not uncommon for mothers to give their infants opium to keep them quiet...