-The Hindu ‘Bring new constitutional authority for education, non-discrimination of women, children’ Standing firmly against lowering of the age criteria for juveniles accused of heinous crimes including rape, the Justice J.S. Verma Committee report on ‘Amendments to Criminal Law’ has noted that “the Juvenile Justice Act has failed miserably to protect the children in the country. We cannot hold the child responsible for a crime before first providing to him/her the basic...

-The Hindu Majority of patients are utilising public health facilities in the State for chronic disease treatment An evaluation has ranked Tamil Nadu at the top for implementation outcomes of the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) and described it as a benchmark for other States. Analysis of data also reveals that in Physical Infrastructure per 1 lakh population with respect to Primary Health Centres, Community Health Centres, and First Reference Units, Jammu and...

-Frontline The Congress-led UPA seems to be betting heavily on the cash transfer scheme as a means to return to power in the next general elections. DECEMBER 2012 may go down in history as the month when the Congress party created its own “India Shining” moment: the moment when it started believing its own hype, and even deluded itself into thinking that its perception was so widely shared that it could provide...

-The Indian Express The UPA’s cash transfer scheme — delivering over Rs.3.2 lakh crore in subsidies and welfare programmes to the poor, directly to their bank accounts — has raised fears in many quarters about the capacity of a rickety state apparatus to cope with messy implementation issues. Our collective self-confidence about being able to implement any new policy is so low today, we seem to be paralysed by the mere...

-Outlook Its ploy of Aadhar-hinged cash transfer may have won the Congress political points, but will it really be a game-changer?   State-Wise     40% of the 22 crore Aadhar numbers are in Andhra Pradesh (4.7 crore) and Maharashtra (4 crore)     20% is what the two politically sensitive, Congress-ruled states account for of the 51 districts where DCT will be rolled out     55 lakh Aadhar numbers in TMC-run West Bengal. BJP-ruled Gujarat (57...