Disability rights groups are up in arms against a Bill proposing an amendment to the Copyright Act, 1952, that prevents non-governmental organisations, educational institutions and persons with disabilities from converting reading material including textbooks and reference material into audio, digital and other formats that can be used by differently-abled persons. The amendment Bill, introduced in the Rajya Sabha this week, if passed in its current form, will prevent over 70 million...

Ralegan Siddhi (Maharashtra): Social activist Anna Hazare, who began an indefinite hunger strike on Tuesday, has alleged that the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party government in Maharashtra is wasting public money by allowing Ministers to spruce up their already well-furnished cabins. “The State is reeling under a debt burden and Ministers are busy spending lakhs on renovating their cabins.” Mr. Hazare began his fast here on the occasion of Gudi Padwa, the Marathi...

The Rajya Sabha on Thursday approved re-naming the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGREGA), but not before the Government was criticised for corruption in the implementation of the scheme launched in 2005. Responding to clarifications, Union Minister for Rural Development C.P. Joshi announced that there would be a “different wage index” under the scheme, one that may not necessarily be...

A prolonged dry spell has left the epicentre of farmer suicides in crisis again Yavatmal: Recent rains have given Vidarbha a fresh look, but they have done little to ease the misery of thousands of farmers in these districts at the eastern edge of Maharashtra as they live with the reality of parched fields and mounting debt. As election fever grips the state, farmers in Yavatmal and nearby districts swear...

Will the Congress-NCP gain from a multiplicity of fronts which could dissipate the anti-Congress vote? Or will the Shiv Sena-BJP benefit from the Third Front’s cutting into the Congress-NCP vote?  Whatever the failings of Maharashtra’s political class, and these are many, a lack of optimism is not among them. Even after the last date for the withdrawal of nominations to the Assembly elections, there are more fronts, real and imagined,...