-CivilSocietyOnline.com For the past decade state governments have launched a series of Internet-based initiatives to deliver services more efficiently. Technology has been seen as the best way of bypassing red tape and corruption in the system to reach the poor directly with benefits. Beneficiaries are identified through biometrics and a series of tech solutions like smart cards, micro ATMs and so on. The result of these efforts is that India is...

-The Indian Express Mining has the distinction of being the most dangerous profession in India. Industry insiders concede that official numbers could be much lower than the actual deaths that take place deep inside the mines. Progressive improvements in the safety standard of India’s coal mines notwithstanding, every ten days last year there was a mining fatality in the country. And every third day last year, on an average, there was...

At the Labour Line office of Aajeevika Bureau situated at Syphon Chouraha on Bedla Road in Udaipur, Santosh Poonia said that 12,926 calls were received by his office between August 2011 and March 2016, out of which almost 37 percent were payment-related grievance calls. During the same time-span, 2,008 payment-related cases (as received by the Labour Line office) could be settled. Poonia, who is Programme Manager (Legal Education and Aid...

-The Hindu No action taken against hospitals or blood banks, says RTI activist. In the last 17 months alone, 2,234 persons across India have been infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) while getting blood transfusions. The maximum number of such cases — 361 — was reported from Uttar Pradesh due to unsafe blood transfusion practices in hospitals. Just last week, a three-year-old boy from Assam’s Kamrup district, admitted to the Gauhati Medical College...

-Hindustan Times India has the largest population of modern slaves in the world with more than 18 million people trapped as bonded labourers, forced beggars, sex workers and child soldiers, a global survey report said on Monday. The Global Slavery Index by human rights organisation Walk Free Foundation said the number was 1.4% of India’s population, the fourth highest among 167 countries with the largest proportion of slaves. “Existing research suggests all forms...