-The Business Standard Railway engineers would help gram panchayats in developing estimates of the work and in training workers Union Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal today announced a partnership between Indian Railways and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in his budget speech. "I thank (Minister of Rural Development) Jairam Ramesh for agreeing to the railways' request to partner in some of the rail-related activities under MGNREGS," he said. Bansal...

-Rising Kashmir Srinagar: The criterion for laborers getting wages with Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in Bandipora villages is not a job card but a rooster. “Even if you have worked efficiently, you will be paid wages only if you have a desi rooster to gift the officials,” locals from various Bandipora villages said. Alleging corruption in the release of funds, people from Zaban Chuntimulla said authorities were not releasing...

-The Business Standard The recent judgment of the Delhi High Court upholding the right of unaided schools to apply screening procedure for nursery admissions to unreserved category of students has brought cheer to many schools, and disappointment to social activists. The schools and many parents are relieved that the cloud of uncertainty around the admission process has withered away at least for this academic year. However, the battle is far from...

-The Hindu Kota, Rajasthan: The sun is about to set over grey-brown slabs in sandstone quarries in Kota district, Rajasthan. Babulal Khairwa sits at the edge of a quarry and attentively hits a taanki, a chisel shaped like a gigantic nail, placed on the stone with a hammer. Babulal hits the stone with the hammer till it cracks in a straight line. Each 2 by 10 square feet foot slab, or...

-The Hindu Rajouri /Janjgir Champa: Exactly a year ago last February, 78 migrants working in bonded debt in brick kilns in Jammu and Kashmir made a desperate bid to start a new life. Sahodara Bai, who had worked at the kiln with her husband and eight children for 25 years, returned from a rare visit to her village in the plains in Chhattisgarh with a pamphlet. “The parchaa (pamphlet) had the name...