-The Hindustan Times Mansa: In a bizarre reply under the Right To Information (RTI) Act, officials of the zila parishad had asked an RTI applicant, Hardev Singh, a resident of Dhingar village, to collect information from his village sarpanch personally. Besides, the authorities have also violated RTI norms by sending a copy of the application to the village sarpanch, who is supposed to submit the information sought by the applicant to...

-The Times of India SHIMLA: With their protests having failed to impact power corridors of the state, tribals in Lahaul-Spiti, who are opposing the 400MW Seli hydro project on Chenab river, have now decided that no villager would rent their houses to project officials, and they will be barred from entering their villages. The protesters have called for a bandh in the tribal district on June 5. They said that felling...

-Countercurrents.org   The events of last over two decades have shown us, more than before that the efforts of dividing the nation by communal forces have been a major obstacle to social peace and process of development. In India while the communal violence began with the Jabalpur riot of 1961, it is from last couple of decades especially from 1980s that the divisive politics has tried to drive a wedge between different...

-The Hindu   Investment in a scheme that guarantees rural employment with minimum wages should be seen as complementary and not alternative to development activities A recent paper by the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) has argued that the "push" factors of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) are not as important as the economic growth "pull" factors, for increasing agricultural wages. The paper has received wide media...

-The Hindu With general elections just a year away, the Union government is keen to project the proposed installation of around 3,000 mobile towers in nine Naxal-affected States as one of the major achievements of the the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government. For the Rs.3,000-crore project that would give mobile coverage to India's most backward districts and remote villages covering over 80 Left Wing Extremism (LWE)-affected districts, the DoT wants Prime Minister...