-The Telegraph Hazaribagh: A 40-year-old mother of two died of starvation at Hazaribagh Sadar Hospital this morning, two days after her daughter died of the same reason at their village home 7km from district headquarters, in a country where National Food Security Bill, 2013, received Presidential assent on September 10. Despite so-called safety nets - existing flagship welfare provisions such as BPL card, MGNREGS and a host of other subsidy, pension, assistance,...

-The Hindu     The draft policy on the use of forest land is at odds with sound conservation principles and fails to plug holes in current guidelines that work to the advantage of project promoters The Supreme Court in July 2011 while delivering the Lafarge Judgment laid down guidelines on forest clearance procedures. These were to operate till a new regulatory mechanism was put in place. Two years after the judgment, the Ministry...

-Outlook Raipur: Chhattisgarh has been selected for this year's prestigious National Literacy Award for the first time since its formation in November 2000. "For the first time after formation of the state, Chhattisgarh has been selected for the Literate Indian National Literacy Award as it has attained remarkable achievements in the field of literacy," an official statement said today. "Korea district and its village panchayat Patna will also get this award along with...

-The Indian Express   Rajya Sabha on Wednesday passed the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2013. The proposed law, which will replace the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 that suffers from various shortcomings, including silence on the issue of resettlement and rehabilitation of those displaced, stipulates mandatory consent of at least 70 per cent of landowners for acquiring land for Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Reflecting the larger national mood against corruption, the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) saw a staggering jump of over 110% in the number of complaints received by the integrity institution last year. "The Commission received more than 37,000 complaints during 2012 as compared to 17,407 complaints in 2011 which is 113% more than that of previous year," says the annual CVC report. Among them were over...