-The Hindu Gumla (Jharkhand): There had been an employees' strike at the college since February. Mukesh Sahu, 21, a second-year B.Sc. student, spent the Thursday afternoon in March running errands at Gumla market. As he sat down near the town pond to catch up with his college friends, his phone rang. "Naveen has been shot. The police shot him." It was his uncle, a couple of years older than him,...

-The Hindu Mumbai: Unsafe abortions are killing a woman every two hours in this country, according to estimates and calculations correlating data on maternal mortality ratio (MMR) and Sample Registration System (SRS) data by Ipas, India, an international NGO working on increasing access to safe abortion services. The last nationwide MMR data giving details of causes of maternal deaths was in SRS 2001-03, said advisor, policy for Ipas India, Medha Gandhi. While...

-The Hindu Chandigarh: For one Sarabjit Singh, whose death brought politicians to his funeral and financial assistance for his family, the Punjab countryside is dotted with scores of men knocking on the doors of courts seeking compensation for the years many of them spent in Pakistani jails, and recognition of their services as spies for India. Neither the government nor his family has ever acknowledged that Sarabjit - who died this week...

-The Hindu Kolkata: The agitation against fraudulent deposit-taking companies continued to spread in the State with the police intervening in some places to prevent the situation spinning out of control. There were instances of agents heckling investors. Demanding that their money be returned, a group of investors protested outside one of the companies at Lake Town near the city on Saturday. At Salt Lake nearby, another company faced the ire of anguished...

-Live Mint Why do the central and state govts deliberately undermine the constitutionally created panchayats? The collector of any district in India would be heading 100 to 150 committees related to various development initiatives in the area. Collectors often don't get time to prepare for or preside over the meetings of these committees-imagine what happens to implementation then. On the other hand, the heads of district panchayats and municipalities in the...