Four deadly cobras among 40 snakes unleashed by farmers in latest anti-corruption protest in northern India Two farmers fed up with bribery demands have dumped three sacks filled with snakes on the floor of a busy tax office in northern India. The 40 or so snakes of different sizes and species, including at least four deadly cobras, sent clerks and villagers climbing on to tables and scurrying out of the door to...

-The Telegraph   The Sonia-Gandhi headed National Advisory Council will prod the government to bring a law to protect unorganised retail sector workers as it brings foreign direct investment into multi-brand retail. Sonia, the council chairperson and the Congress chief, showed the green flag to the government on FDI in retail. The NAC in 2005 had drafted the unorganised sector workers’ social security bill that proposed a national authority to oversee the implementation of...

While higher income levels mean countries have more money to improve women's health, ultimately it comes down to how governments decide to spend the money We know that economic growth and human development do not always go hand in hand, as evidenced by the very different position of countries in per capita GDP rankings compared with human development rankings. But the link between health conditions and economic growth is usually thought...

-The Times of India   The debate about Planning Commission's controversial poverty line could finally be buried. The UPA is now mulling doing away with the BPL-APL divide and providingsubsidized grains to all except those who get automatically excluded in the ongoing socio-economic caste census. But on the flipside, it also wants to reduce the entitlement from the proposed 35 kg to 25 kg instead for the poor.  Along with the move to...

-The Hindu   A group of anti-Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP) protesters detained two buses of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) at Chettikulam on Saturday. The police said a group of students from Chettikulam had gone for a books exhibition organised at the school on Anu Vijay Township campus Housing workers, engineers and scientists of the KKNPP. When they returned to their school at Chettikulam in two NPCIL buses, the protesters...