-The Hindu ‘Wilful negligence’ by public servants should be defined better in 24-year-old law Dedicated fast track courts to try offences under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act should be set up, the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council recommended on Tuesday, even as it suggested that “wilful negligence” by public servants be better defined in the 24-year-old law. The NAC would like the Rules to the Act amended to...

-Live Mint Preventing entry of Dalits, tribespeople to places of worship should be made a punishable offence, says NAC Preventing Dalits and tribespeople from entering places of worship will be made a punishable offence under legal changes proposed by the National Advisory Council (NAC), which sets the social policy for the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. Obstructing members of such groups from using community resources will also be made an offence under...

-PTI The jobs scheme has expedited the financial inclusion of the rural population, says Manmohan Singh Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday said bank and post office accounts opened under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) will help the government provide direct cash transfers to the people. “MNREGA has brought momentum in the financial inclusion of our rural population. Besides direct financial benefit, the scheme has given many indirect benefits...

-Deccan Herald As primitive tribes continue to be in a state of acute poverty, ‘schedule area’ status for settlements of evicted tribals from Nagarahole National Park will favour their development. The status will also solve the problem of representation of tribals in political institutions, which will help them benefit from the welfare programmes aimed at them, said Muzaffar Assadi, Chairman of the High Court-appointed Committee on Tribal Issues of Rajiv Gandhi...

-Kashmir Times If psychologist Ashis Nandy had planned to ignite a potentially ugly controversy at the Jaipur Literary Festival, he couldn't have done better than by insinuating intimate links between corruption and Dalits, Adivasis and Other Backward Classes. After warning that he was about to make a "very undignified" and "almost vulgar" statement, "which will shock you", Nandy said: "It is a fact that most of the corrupt come from the...