The robust 9 per cent –plus growth in South Asia till 2010, driven largely by India, where it came down to around 7 per cent in 2011-12, had one major qualifier: it was mostly associated with a rapid rise in labour productivity rather than an expansion in employment, according to the latest report Global Employment Trends from International Labour Office. Up until the end of the millennium, that is just a...

If the Bill seeking to protect children from sexual offences is passed by Parliament in the form in which it was cleared last week by the Cabinet, then there will be a direct but unstated conflict between the general and special laws on rape. Under the special law proposed in the freshly revised "Protection of Children From Sexual Offences Bill" , no person below 18 years will have the legal capability...

-The Times of India JAIPUR: A day after TOI published a report, "Orphans in peril as RTE mandates parents' income, caste certificates," the Rajasthan government's social justice and empowerment department has written to the education department to soon clarify the issue of certificates mandated under RTE for orphaned children. The report had highlighted how orphans were being asked documents like parents' income certificate, caste certificate, age certificate etc. to get admission in...

-The Telegraph The government today told a Constitution bench that the right to freedom of speech was for the “benefit” of the public, not the media, as it backed the Supreme Court’s attempt to lay down norms for reporting judicial proceedings. “Freedom of speech is not for the benefit of the press but for the benefit of the public,” additional solicitor-general Indira Jaisingh said, marking a shift from the cautious stand the...

The list of those complaining about trial by media is growing by the day: among the latest additions is Dara Singh, convicted of the murder of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two minor sons. A Supreme Court Constitution bench headed by the Chief Justice of India, S.H. Kapadia, is mulling guidelines for the media to report sub-judice matters. Dara has filed an application claiming that intense media pressure had prevented the...