The total expenditure on central schemes for the poor and on the major subsidies exceeds the states' share of central taxes. These schemes are chronic bad performers due to a culture of immunity in public administration and weakened local governments. Arguing that the poor should be trusted to use these resources better than the state, a radical redirection with substantial direct transfers to individuals and complementary decentralisation to local governments...

-Pratirodh Bureau With the mercury plummeting, thousands of homeless people continue to bear the harsh winter in the absence of sufficient night shelters in Jaipur city.   A survey released by the People's Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL), which voluntarily monitors the condition of night shelters, claims that 40% of these shelters have improper bedding facility. Also, many poor are still spending night in the open due to sufficient shelters.   Here is the survey...

-The Indian Express Experts are divided over the stand taken by the State Education department to exempt the unAided minority schools from the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act 2009 while releasing the admission schedule for the academic year 2013-14. While some experts have termed the decision in contrary to the enabling provisions of the Act, others are describing it as in conformity with the Act. In chapter...

-The Hindu The old Penal Code exempts it as an offence if a wife is not under 16 Opposing the death penalty for those guilty of rape, women’s groups have demanded that marital rape, stalking and stripping be regarded as serious offences. The old Penal Code and the proposed amendments exempt marital rape as an offence if a wife is not under 16 years of age. This exemption, totally and unreasonably, ignores the...

-The Indian Express At a time when there’s a chorus for showing no leniency to the juvenile among the six arrested for the gangrape of the 23-year-old woman who later died in a Singapore hospital, children’s rights workers are cautioning that laws should not be bent simply because there is public outrage. Minna Kabir, voluntary children’s rights worker who has long been associated with the legal Aid cell at the juvenile justice...