-The Telegraph Ministries are in the dark over control of the Rs 1,000-crore "Nirbhaya Fund", announced in last month's budget and named in the Delhi gang rape victim's memory, despite government declarations of urgency in dealing with women's safety issues. While some ministers believe the home ministry will be the nodal agency to handle the funds, others reckon that the finance ministry will take the reins and disburse the cash to ministries...

-The Telegraph The activists of North East Students' Organisation (Neso) today staged demonstrations in all the states demanding immediate updating of National Register of Citizens (NRC) and repeal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act. In Guwahati, the activists of All Assam Students' Union (AASU), a constituent body of Neso, staged a demonstration in front of Raj Bhavan at Uzan Bazararmed with placards stating "Northeast cannot be dumping ground of illegal migrants,"...

-The Times of India The Union Cabinet is set to clear a bill seeking to replace the post-Nirbhaya case ordinance dealing with crime against women which will reduce the age for consensual sex to 16 and reinstate "rape" as an offence specifically committed against women. The government has resolved differences on the two contentious aspects of the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2013, bowing to the demands of women's groups who protested against...

-The Times of India To remove various disadvantages that women face in India, the Union government introduced Gender Responsive Budgeting (or Gender Budgeting) in 2005-06. It meant that high-flying promises on empowering women were to be backed by financial outlays and that a gender perspective was to imbue all policy making. It was always a tough call - from the home, to the workplace and generally in society women are treated like...

-Economic and Political Weekly The proposed legislation on the National Food Security Act has been steadily watered down since it was fi rst mooted in 2009. The Parliamentary Standing Committee that examined the 2011 Bill has disappointingly continued with "targeting". If the government passes the bill incorporating the committee's suggestions, a historic opportunity to combat hunger and malnutrition would be lost. Ankita Aggarwal (aggarwal.ankita87@gmail.com) is a Research Scholar at the Centre for...