-Press release from NREGA Sangharsh Morcha For the past five days, hundreds of National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) workers and their supporters from across the country have gathered at Jantar Mantar to demand the implementation of the employment guarantee act in letter and spirit. They are demanding a substantial increase in the NREGA wages, timely payment of wages, implementation of local plans, expansion of existing entitlements and adequate budget for...

-The Times of India BHOPAL: Breaking its silence five days after the murder of a child at Ryan International School in Gurugram, the CBSE on Wednesday announced that the onus of safety of students on campus lies solely with school authorities. The CBSE said this in response to a Supreme Court query in the aftermath of the Gurugram school murder. On Wednesday, the board sent a circular on 'safety of children' to...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: A leading cancer specialist has called on the government to investigate whether a "tobacco lobby" has influenced arms of the government to initiate action against public health organisations engaged in India's tobacco control efforts. Kailash Sharma, director of academics at the Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, has cited leaked government and tobacco industry documents to seek a probe into whether a Union home ministry note allegedly depicting tobacco control...

-The Telegraph Lucknow: Once bitten, the Yogi Adityanath administration acted fast when reports came of mass baby deaths at a hospital in Farrukhabad that had allegedly failed to administer oxygen to them, registering an FIR against two senior doctors. But the decision, on the basis of a probe by a "non-technical Team" of civil servants, has prompted government doctors in the western district to strike work till Wednesday and threaten mass resignation...

-Frontline.in The death of nearly 60 children in Gorakhpur because of the unavailability of oxygen can be directly attributed to the larger issue of drastic reduction in budgetary allocations for and the gross neglect of the public health system. THE death of almost 60 children, including infants, in the government-run Baba Raghav Das Medical College Hospital in Gorakhpur within a span of 48 hours raises several issues relating to the state...