-Live Mint Mani Shankar Aiyar, India's first panchyati raj minister, talks about the challenges the institutions face On Wednesday, India marked 20 years of panchayati raj, an exercise in devolving power to people at the grassroots. Rajya Sabha memberMani Shankar Aiyar was India's first panchyati raj minister, appointed to the newly created ministry in 2004. He headed a committee that examined the reasons why attempts at sharing power with self-governance units haven't...

-The Hindustan Times Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala chief minister Oommen Chandy said on Tuesday his government was expected to take a decision shortly on Attapadi, a malnutrition-afflicted tribal hamlet in Palakkad district below the Nilgiri hills of the Western Ghats. According to the district health office of Palakkad, 14 malnutrition-related deaths have taken place in the past four months, but NGOs working with the tribals say more than 40 children died in the past...

-Live Mint The experience of Kerala and Tripura shows how panchayati raj can help in the empowerment of women Chulubari (Tripura)/Kanjikuzhy (Kerala): Her relatives warned Hena Das, a resident of Chulubari in Tripura, against taking up political office because it wasn't "meant for women". Das disregarded the warnings. Two years on, she has no regrets. She also has no male colleagues; her fellow representatives on the board of an 12-member panchayat are all...

-Down to Earth Inadequate sewage treatment and disposal in the national capital territory is contaminating city's groundwater Delhi residents who depend on groundwater for their drinking water needs be warned. The latest data of the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) shows that groundwater samples taken from observation wells in the national capital are getting contaminated because of their unhygienic catchments and untreated sewage, which is discharged in the open and into drains,...

-PTI The Supreme Court today agreed to constitute a committee headed by an eminent jurist to finalise the draft rules for dealing with sexual harassment complaints of women, including lady lawyers, working at the apex court. A bench, headed by Chief Justice Altamas Kabir, said the name of the chairman of the Committee, which will also go into various other issues raised in the report prepared on its order, would be decided...