-The Business Standard Are these people expected to return to their villages and hometowns to hang around waiting for the Unique Identification Authority of India to set up shop?  Workers returning to their jobs in metros from remote villages in Bihar and Jharkhand have lately been complaining that they are barred from boarding trains unless they show sufficient identification, including proof of residence in cities. Whether this is a run-up to the...

-The Telegraph Jorhat: Naglo and Lonliam, two nondescript villages in the Lazo area of Tirap district in Arunachal Pradesh, have taken a path-breaking decision that could stir others like them out of their opium-induced stupor. The two villages have agreed to give up opium cultivation and will sign an understanding with the district administration to that effect when five frontier districts, including Tirap, of the state, bordering Myanmar and China, join hands...

-Outlook Myanmar's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi today said had Mahatma Gandhi been alive he would have been "vocal" about his "disapproval" of India's stand regarding her country. "I think Mahatma Gandhi would have been very vocal about his disapproval," the Noble Prize winner, for whom Gandhi has been one of the greatest influences, told Karan Thapar at CNN-IBN's Devil's Advocate programme. "I think he (Gandhi) would have stood by us...He would...

-Mainstream Weekly Dr Binayak Sen, an internationally renowned medical practitioner and social activist (a leading figure in the People’s Union for Civil Liberties), was incarcerated in Chhattisgarh and held in detention in Raipur having been branded as a Maoist for his activities in defence of poor tribals in the State. He is now out on bail. The following is the text of the Arvind Narayan Das Memorial Lecture he delivered in...

-The Hindu A 2012 WHO study ranks India third — behind Myanmar and Bangladesh — among countries that fail to provide health cover to people. A 2011 study reported in The Lancet on ‘Healthcare and equity’ confirms this: every year, at least 39 million people here fall into poverty due to private out-of-pocket health expenditure. A vast majority of Indians do not have access to healthcare or essential drugs. By the...