-The Hindu Soni Sori, the tribal accused of acting as a courier between Essar Steel and the outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist), has been acquitted in a crucial case filed in 2010 by the Dantewada district police against 19 individuals for allegedly opening fire and using explosives to blow vehicles of Essar. Ms Sori was one of the key accused in the case. “But the additional sessions court of Anita Dehariya could not find...

-The Economic Times Rural Development minister Jairam Ramesh has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh explaining the positive impact of the rural employment guarantee programme on agricultural production. The note is in response to persistent claims by Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Agriculture minister Sharad Pawar that the rural employment scheme has adversely affected agriculture. Stressing on the positive impact of the UPA's employment programme, Ramesh has suggested that the Prime...

-Economic and Political Weekly The committee of inquiry headed by justice Verma is a landmark for the way in which it has inscribed into the very foundations of law, the equality and liberty of India’s women citizens. To uphold the constitutional guarantees afforded to women, it is essential that the rights given to working women in the Vishaka judgment (also delivered by justice Verma) are not elided or compromised, either by...

-The Telegraph Law minister Ashwani Kumar today said the government had an “open” mind on changes in the juvenile justice act and the recently introduced Criminal Law (Amendment) Ordinance to ensure a credible deterrent that wouldn’t lend itself to abuse. He said the “final shape” to the new criminal law would emerge after a “comprehensive debate” in Parliament but didn’t set a time frame for changes in the JJ Act, 2000. The minister’s...

-World Bank Blog The enormity of the global job-creation challenge is underscored in a comprehensive new analysis by the International Finance Corporation, which issued a wide-ranging Jobs Study at a recent IFC forum  on the urgency of the unemployment crisis. More than 200 million people are now unemployed worldwide – with another 1.5 billion people only marginally employed, and with an additional 2 billion working-age adults neither working nor seeking a...