-The Hindu Business Line Those neither at school nor at work should also be seen as ‘child labour’. The state is responsible for their well-being In order to align with the provisions as contained in The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009 (RTE, 2009), the Union Cabinet in May, 2015, gave its approval for moving official amendments to the Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2012. This...

-The Indian Express A renewed funding squeeze may undermine MGNREGA’s recent revival, fear civil society activists. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme which guarantees 100 days of wage employment per year to rural households, may have staged a revival in the last two quarters after showing a declining trend in person-days generation during the first year of the Narendra Modi government. But the turnaround could well be temporary,...

-The Times of India Jaipur: An auto rickshaw driver got paper sheets weighing 39 kg in reply to an RTI query he filed seeking information on the 1.5 bigahs of his father's cultivable land that was acquired by Rajasthan State Industrial Development and Investment Corporation (RIICO) some 20 years ago in Udaipur's Bhoiyon-ki-pancholi village. The reason was that he suspected foul play as there were others in the village whose land had...

-The Hindu The public now sees the Internet not just in market terms, but as a social phenomenon that requires public interest regulation. In its aggressive campaign for Free Basics, couched in simplistic developmental language, Facebook underestimated the political sophistication of the Indian public. It must be regretting it now. The social networking service’s reportedly Rs. 100-crore campaign, through double full-page newspaper advertisements, billboards and television, appears simply to have congealed public...

-The Hindu Business Line New Delhi: Ahead of the Budget, eminent citizens across the country have written an open letter to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley requesting him to accord “highest priority” to the rural job guarantee scheme, MGNREGA, and allocate additional ₹5,000 crore to the Ministry of Rural Development. “Subsequent Budget estimations and allocations to the programme must be brought in line with inflation; be measured and maintained as a percentage of...