-Mid-Day.com Mumbai: Thane resident Priya Mahunta is still undergoing surgeries for the 45 per cent burns she sustained in a kitchen accident last year. But despite the scars and marks, which hindered her learning, she has done the unthinkable. Thirteen-year-old Mahunta has passed her Std VIII examinations with flying colours, securing 94 per cent, in spite of being snubbed by several tuition classes from the area who were afraid that other...

-The Hindustan Times It now seems increasingly unlikely that Parliament will consider the National Food Security Bill during this budget session. In a land which for centuries suffered devastating famines, where chronic hunger continues to stalk more than 200 million people, and which is home to every third malnourished child on the planet, this would be one more sad betrayal of the country's indigent millions, a reminder of how little they...

-The Hindu "Freedom without limits is just a word" -Terry Pratchett Kamlesh Vaswani's PIL seeking to ban the viewing of pornography and make it a non-bailable offence has raised eyebrows. Columnists and social media commentators have greeted the idea with shock, raising issues such as social liberty, sexual freedom, and the fact that the mere banning of pornography might not bring down the incidence of rape. On the surface of it, this sounds...

-The Hindu   Respondents given four weeks to respond to mother's plea Guwahati: The Gauhati High Court on Tuesday issued notices to the Assam government, the Board of Secondary Education, Assam (SEBA), and the managing committee and Principal of Kristo Jyoti School in Bokakhat, upper Assam, asking them to show cause in four weeks as to why a petition, which challenged an order of the school authorities - debarring a four-year-old nursery student,...

-Live Mint Almost two decades after the Panchayati Raj Act was notified, a key aim of the legislation remains unfulfilled Papapatti/Madurai district: S. Muruganadam, 38, is the Dalit president of the Papapatti village panchayat in Madurai district and a post-graduate in political science. His term ends in 2016 and he has made up his mind not to run for re-election. "I think a panchayat president's post is an important post because only he...