-The Hindu RTI activist points out irregularities in procurement of biscuits Pune: More allegations of corruption are being made against the Maharashtra Women and Child Development Department (WCD) headed by BJP leader Pankaja Munde, with RTI activists pointing to irregularities in the manufacture and distribution of Ayurvedic biscuits intended a vital source for the nourishment or tribal and underprivileged children living in the State’s backward districts. While the ‘chikki’ scam, whose irregularities have...

-PTI Sources in Congress said that it had sought restoration of the consent of 80 per cent of land owners to be obtained for private projects and that of 70 per cent for PPP ones. Congress, CPI-M and JD-U have sought a "total withdrawal" of proposed changes by the NDA government in the 2013 Land Act and inclusion of some additional measures to further strengthen the law in favour of farmers. In...

-The Indian Express One of the criticisms of the proposed amendment is that it could, in one stroke, legalise the illegal detention of thousands of underage children by policemen across the country. As a potentially chaotic Rajya Sabha attempts to take up the contentious Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Bill 2015 — passed by the Lok Sabha and listed for the Rajya Sabha Wednesday — a number of legal...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Several members of a joint House panel examining the land acquisition bill today slammed the government for holding "parallel" discussions on the same bill in the Niti Aayog, calling it an "insult to Parliament". Their criticism came a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who chaired a meeting of the governing council of the Aayog, warned the Opposition that the deadlock over the bill was "seriously" impacting rural...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: For 10 months, the Narendra Modi administration withheld from the public the findings of a study by India's government and Unicef that charts "unprecedented" improvement in child malnutrition over the past decade but shows Gujarat in an unflattering light. Under pressure after The Economist reported the findings a fortnight ago, the government last week released the national-level data from the Rapid Survey on Children. But it is still...