-Outlook Kokrajhar: The Assam government and the Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District administration today decided to rehabilitate 12000 refugee families affected in the recent violence. The 12000 refugee families would be rehabilitated in the first phase while in subsequent phases the remainder of those in relief camps would return home, BTAD chief Hagrama Mohilary told reporters after a meeting with a group of ministers (GOM). The rehabilitation would be done on the basis of...

-The Economic Times The monsoon session that ends on Friday will enter the hall of shame as the second least productive session of the 15th Parliament with legislators having worked for only a quarter of the scheduled time. Only four bills were passed in the month-long session leaving a backlog of more than 100 pending legislations, some as old as 25 years old. According to data analysed by PRS Legislative Research, Lok Sabha...

-The Times of India As many as 37 people have been arrested in connection with rumour mongering during Assam conflict that led to exodus of people from the northeast from various cities, the government told Rajya Sabha on Wednesday. Of these, 24 persons were arrested by Karnataka police in connection with 17 cases filed in the state on the issue. The rest were arrested by Pune police which has registered cases against...

-Frontline A study finds that institutional support alone cannot help reduce maternal mortality in India.  THE high rate of maternal mortality in India has been a cause for national concern, especially on account of the focus on reaching the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals by 2015. Although there is a growing realisation that it will be difficult to meet the MDG targets by that deadline, there is a renewed interest in the...

-The Hindu A key breakthrough emerging from a critical multi-stakeholder meeting held here on Tuesday on Internet censorship and legitimate state restrictions during crisis situations was that the government should itself use the Internet and social media to counter hate speech with comfort speech. Hate speech on social media has been blamed for triggering riots in Uttar Pradesh, Assam and Mumbai two weeks ago. The participants, who included DoT Secretary R. Chandrashekhar,...