-The Indian Express Mamata has been declaring scheme after scheme, including free bicycles and shoes to girls in Jangalmahal. At least 1,04,000 adivasi girls were given cycles until last year, says the TMC election manifesto. Raipur/ Salbani: Sipra Das, 19, is the first in her family to go to college. A grant of Rs 25,000 under the Kanyashree Prakalpa scheme will not only cover her fees but also help pay for...

-The Pioneer The Modi Government’s campaign to end open defecation is welcome but building new toilets alone will not solve the problem Politically, sanitation is a hot topic but the focus has to shift to the villages. Open defecation is still a common practice in many villages. The plan is to achieve the Clean India target by 2019 to coincide with the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. Every year, health payments...

Although there is sufficient data and evidence available in the public domain to argue whether there has been halving of poverty between 1990 and 2015, the same cannot be said with conviction about the halving of hunger—one of the targets set under the erstwhile Millennium Development Goals framework (replaced recently by SDGs). This is because the recently released data by the National Family Health Survey-4 (conducted in 2015-16) and the...

-Kafila.org News reports are indicating that an FIR has been registered with respect to a public meeting organized on the JNU campus on the evening of 9th February. These reports claim that the meeting was about the hanging of Afzal Guru, and it is alleged that during its course, some people raised incendiary slogans. According to reports, the FIR has been registered under Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code (sedition),...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: A 2012 law to protect children from sexual abuse is being used to target teen romance, a study of such cases in Delhi over the past three years suggests. The study by the National Law School, Bangalore, has shown that in 10 per cent of the cases filed under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, the accused was in a relationship with the victim. In another...