-PTI United Nations has observed that poverty head count ratio for Muslims is highest in the states of Assam, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Gujarat even as it expressed satisfaction over India's efforts to meet the millennium development goals in important areas. "India is well placed to meet the millennium evelopment goals on reducing poverty by half and achieving universal primary education and gender parity in education. However, it is not...

-The Hindu In carrying out Afzal Guru’s death sentence, the government deliberately ignored the view of the Supreme Court and courts across the world that hanging a person after holding him in custody for years is inhuman The execution of Afzal Guru on February 9, 2013 was an inhumane act by the Government of India. Afzal Guru was hanged seven years after the Supreme Court’s pronouncement of the death sentence on him...

-The Telegraph The world lauds us as the largest democracy. Yet, how much of a democracy are we and where must we improve? Elections and their consequences: We have regular elections. They are supervised with increasing effectiveness as far as booth capturing, bogus voters and violence are concerned. The influence of money has not waned; if anything, it has increased. It is not as it used to be, for paying voters only....

-The Hindu Even as the Centre hopes to introduce and pass the National Food Security Bill in the coming budget session of Parliament, several States have expressed reservations on the Bill. At a consultation meeting of State Food Ministers here to evolve a consensus on the recommendations of the Parliamentary Standing Committee to which the government Bill was referred on Wednesday, many States differed on crucial provisions, particularly the ones relating to...

-Live Mint The project is part of the country’s ambitious cash-transfer plan for selected welfare programmes Bangalore: Karnataka will start transferring cash directly to the bank accounts of the beneficiaries of India’s rural job guarantee scheme on a pilot basis in seven districts later this year, the state government said. This is part of the country’s ambitious cash-transfer plan for selected welfare programmes that the central government wants to eventually adopt across the...