-The Hindustan Times The current electoral discourse shows an amazing disconnect with the actual reality of the deteriorating livelihood conditions of our people. The other day, the BJP PM aspirant thundered in Bangalore that the BJP seeks to create confidence and not fear among the people. The 2002 Gujarat communal pogrom makes this sound incredulous. There is nothing in the BJP's campaign pitch that offers any solution or a methodology for...

-The Hindustan Times New Delhi: We had not yet recovered from the horror played out in Member of Parliament Dhananjay Singh's home in New Delhi's VIP enclave when another horrific case of maid abuse tumbled out from a middle-class neighbourhood in east Delhi last week. A 55-year-old Non-Resident Indian, in town to take care of her ailing mother, allegedly tortured her maid by branding her with hot kitchen tongs. A minor...

-The Telegraph Thiruvananthapuram: The Centre's move to implement an ecology panel's report on conservation of the Western Ghats has provoked a call for a 48-hour civil disobedience agitation by the Catholic Church in Kerala, starting Sunday midnight. The Church claims the K. Kasturirangan report, notified on Wednesday, will hit the livelihoods of farmers living in the "high ranges" - foothill areas bordering the forests - and force them to relocate. Green activists deny...

-Outlook Aizwal: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said that the UPA government's policies and programmes for rapid and inclusive growth are showing good results and the country has seen a record average economic growth in the last nine years. "The UPA government's policies and programmes for rapid and inclusive growth are showing good results. We have seen a record average rate of economic growth in the last nine years, which is higher...

-Down to Earth Ministers write protest letters to prime minister and finance minister, saying it would greatly impact ongoing schemes The Congress-led UPA government has been harping on its pro-poor schemes in the run up to the elections early next year. But it has effected a drastic cut in budgetary allocations for social welfare schemes. The move is reportedly prompted by the urgent need to contain current account deficit (CAD) to below...