-The Economic Times Arvind Panagariya, a professor of Indian economics at Columbia University, hits out at Nobel laureate and Harvard University professor Amartya Sen over his call to confront MPs with the "number of deaths" a delayed Food Security Bill can cause. The former chief economist at the Asian Development Bank counters Sen's argument that it is high social spending that has contributed to the economic growth of Asian economies such...

-Countercurrents.org   The events of last over two decades have shown us, more than before that the efforts of dividing the nation by communal forces have been a major obstacle to social peace and process of development. In India while the communal violence began with the Jabalpur riot of 1961, it is from last couple of decades especially from 1980s that the divisive politics has tried to drive a wedge between different...

-The Telegraph The Supreme Court will tomorrow hear an application to restrain police from invoking Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, till its constitutional validity is decided by the courts. A vacation bench scheduled the hearing on a petition seeking a stay on proceedings relating to an FIR lodged against Jaya Vindhyalaya, a civil liberties activist, for posting "objectionable" material on Facebook against Tamil Nadu governor K. Rosaiah and an...

-The Indian Express Mumbai: To prevent humiliation and trauma that victims of sexual assault often face during their medical examination, the Maharashtra government has issued a Government Resolution (GR) doing away with archaic and irrelevant practices, including the 'finger test'. The GR states that doctors, paramedics and medical officers of the state health department would have to adhere to a new manual that details the manner in which the medical examination should...

-The Hindu Kolkata: A day after the Calcutta High Court ruled in favour of the State Election Commission in a dispute over rural polls, West Bengal Panchayat Minister Subrata Mukherjee said the government would take the issue to the Supreme Court if a Division Bench upheld the single-judge's order. ‘Verdict unrealistic' Calling the verdict "unrealistic," Mr. Mukherjee told journalists on Saturday it was impossible for any government to implement the order. The High Court...