-The Hindu To bridge the gap in development between the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and non-SCs and STs, a coalition of more than 150 organisations is demanding a national law to prevent, once and for all, the diversion, non-release, non-implementation and lapsing of the Special Component Plans for SCs/STs. In response to the coalition's longstanding demands, the National Advisory Council's guidance and the letter Sonia Gandhi wrote to the Prime Minister...

-The Indian Express Imphal: Alice Kamei had been missing for two days when Sundari got the call. What the voice on the other end said about her 14-year-old daughter has turned the world of this family living in Chingphu Kabui village in Manipur's Bishnupur district upside down. "It was a call from the RPF (Revolutionary People's Front). They said that Alice had come to them of her own will," says Sundari. "They...

-The Times of India The present Lok Sabha could well end up with the dubious distinction of being the least productive in terms of business transacted among those that completed their full five-year terms. According to statistics compiled by the Lok Sabha secretariat, 1,157 hours of sittings had taken place until the 12th session of the 15th Lok Sabha, which was elected in May 2009. Among the Houses that completed five-year terms, the...

-The Hindustan Times It never rains, it pours as far as the troubles of the UPA government go in recent times. Any hope that the scams which have been unearthed and their aftermath could be put behind it as it enters the final phase of its tenure before elections 2014 has been belied after the disclosure by the Central Bureau of Investigation director Ranjit Sinha that the agency had shown its...

-The Hindu   We'll have to make ‘some compromises,' to pass the Bills: govt. sources The UPA government had hoped to push its social welfare agenda through in Parliament by legislating on food security and land acquisition. Instead, just five days into the second half of the ongoing budget session, it is engaged in damage control, trying to put out three fires simultaneously - the coal blocks' allocation issue, the 2G JPC imbroglio...