-The Hindu     While the stagnation in women's ability to control their own fate is disappointing, some of the other gender indicators are downright alarming On International Women's Day, the Election Commission of India held a special campaign to bring women voters to the polls. Although men and women vote at a more or less similar rate in State elections, women are 6-8 percentage points behind in the Lok Sabha elections where national...

-The Indian Express Candidates are expected to spend up to R11,000 crore collectively Election spending by candidates and the state machinery for the upcoming General Elections is expected to bring about only a marginal rise in the GDP growth of the world's largest democracy. Poll expenditure, which is estimated to touch Rs 11,000 crore by candidates in the country's 543 Lok Sabha constituencies could increase the country's gross domestic product by about...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The country's faltering economy is likely to get a significant stimulus from election spending by political parties, candidates and the government which estimates suggest could be as much as Rs 30,000 crore. The figure is comparable to the $4 billion (around Rs 20,000 crore at the prevailing exchange rate) additional spending that the government announced in 2008 to shield the economy from the impact of the...

-The Telegraph Even as it is busy trying to resolve other people's conflicts in so many parts of the world, the United Nations has recently created a conflict of its own. It began innocuously enough. The organization has always tried to get consensus around matters on which it is often very difficult to arrive at such consensus. The usual strategy to achieve this is to sufficiently water down the language in its...

-Live Mint Mint examines why millions of women are missing from farms, factories, colleges, and offices in India, which has one of the lowest ratios of working women in the world Mumbai: Every monsoon, minivans ferrying women labourers can be seen making their way from the small sleepy town of Wardha to Waifad village, 18 kilometres away. Urban workers from Wardha have come to occupy an integral part of Waifad's farm...