-The Hindustan Times A civil society group on Friday demanded key changes in the bill to protect whistleblowers, including widening its scope to bring all categories of public servants and private sector employees under its purview. The National Campaign for People's Right to Information, after day-long consultations with the families of some of the whistleblowers, asked the government to make the definition of victimisation clear in the bill. The Whistleblowers Protection Bill was...

KEY TRENDS   • According to National Sample Survey report no. 583: Persons with Disabilities in India, the percentage of persons with disability who received aid/help from Government was 21.8 percent, 1.8 percent received aid/help from organisation other than Government and another 76.4 percent did not receive aid/ help *8   • As per National Family Health Survey-4 (NFHS-4), the Under-five Mortality Rate (U5MR) was 57.2 per 1,000 live births (for the non-STs it was 38.5)...

-Tehelka A public issue is not truly public unless Markandey Katju has passed judgement. Rahul Kotiyal and Ajachi Chakrabarti stand downwind "Journalists" writes Markandey Katju, with little sense of irony, "comment on everything under the sun." He goes on to say that when the shoe is on the other foot, when someone comments on journalism, it is misconstrued as an attack on press freedom. That when he announces he is appointing a...

-The Hindu Business Line Kolkata: The West Bengal State Election Commission on Monday moved the High Court seeking a stay on the notification issued by the State Government regarding panchayat polls (rural polls). The petition was filed before Justice Biswanath Samaddar. The matter is expected to come up for hearing tomorrow. The Panchayat Department of the State Government had last month (in March) issued a notification to conduct panchayat polls in two phases...

-The Indian Express Patna: RTI activists in Bihar say they are intimidated and threatened by the people they seek to expose, with five of them murdered since 2009. They have mounted pressure on the government to ensure their safety. Ram Kumar Thakur of Ratnauli, an RTI activist, a lawyer and the main witness in a vigilance case, was shot dead last week, the latest of the five murders. The FIR names Ratnauli...