-The Hindu Kolkata: The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has taken suo motu cognisance of the death of a class III student at Basanti in West Bengal's South 24 Parganas district and sought a report from the State government. Bapi Joardar (10), a student of Nirdeshkhali Notunpara Sishu Siksha Kendra, died at the State-run SSKM hospital Friday morning after his schoolteacher allegedly banged his head against the wall...

-The Times of India BHOPAL: If you go by some of the photographs on smart cards used for making payments under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in Rewa district, Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh, Shiv Sena leader Uddhav Thackeray, the late ghazal maestro Jagjit Singh and other well-known people are all labourers, though with different names. Many such cards, carrying pictures of celebrities but having names of locals, have...

-The Indian Express Lucknow: The Kusaili village panchayat in Etawah district has announced that they would burn a man allegedly involved in the gangrape of a minor girl, who was forcibly detained and sexually assaulted for about a week. The accused, who belongs to the same village, is absconding. The panchayat was held on Sunday evening after a case of gangrape and illegal detention of the victim was lodged at the Chaubia...

-The Times of India BANGALORE: The newly-elected Congress government in Karnataka has decided not to allow a ban on cow slaughter in the state. The Karnataka Prevention of cow slaughter and Preservation (Amendment) Bill, 2012 passed in the state legislature during the BJP rule would be reversed. "We will go back to the Karnataka Prevention of Cow Slaughter and Cattle Prevention Act, 1964. We will withdraw the bill amended last year," chief...

-Down to Earth For RTI activists of Bihar the cost of exposing corruption is life Twenty-year-old Rahul Kumar, a right to information (RTI) activist, knew the land mafia was behind his parents' murder. His mother and father were involved in a land dispute in Muzaffarpur's Sirisia Jagdish village. Barely a week after filing an RTI application to seek information about the murderers, Kumar was kidnapped. A day later, on March 10, 2012,...