-Live Mint ‘Give me any job... but please take me out of this hell', says 57-year-old Saraswati, a manual scavenger New Delhi: Saraswati doesn't remember the last time her bare hands touched the statues of the gods lying on a shaky wooden plank in a corner of her one-room house in Farrukhnagar village of Ghaziabad district. She doesn't remember the last time she prayed or fasted. She says every part of her body...

-The Hindu The United Progressive Alliance has brazened it out on another piece of legislation aimed at cosseting and mollycoddling the political class. The Representation of the People (Amendment and Validation) Ordinance, 2013, which overturns a Supreme Court order mandating the disqualification of lawmakers immediately upon their conviction, offends for two reasons. First, the ordinance marks the backdoor entry of a bill that faced opposition in the monsoon session of Parliament....

-The Hindustan Times   The Darul-Uloom Deoband’s demand to ban the entry of writer Salman Rushdie into the country took a political turn in Uttar Pradesh on Monday. With an eye on the 17% Muslim electorate in the state, leaders of most parties quickly took poll position. But leaders of the ruling BSP were unavailable for comment. Rushdie, who earned the wrath of Muslims worldwide for his book The Satanic Verses, is scheduled to...