-The Times of India As the clock ticks towards the general elections in a few months time, a major crack appears to be opening up in the government. The mandarins of finance ministry - presumably with the sanction of finance minister P Chidambaram - have proposed huge cuts amounting to over Rs 20,000 crore in spending on popular flagship schemes like the employment guarantee scheme, the rural housing scheme, the village...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Supreme Court order upholding a 153-year-old law that effectively criminalises gay sex has ignored scientific evidence that homosexuality is not deviant in any sense, but merely a variation in human sexual behaviour, experts and lawyers have said. The court has virtually "brushed aside" submissions by medical experts that homosexuality is not a mental health disorder and should not be viewed as a criminal activity, said lawyers...

-The Hindu We rarely ask the poor what poverty means to them and what changes in lifestyle would make them poverty-free The idea that poverty is determined, defined and measured by a group of people mostly unaffected by it is an intriguing one. Numerous definitions and studies globally tell us what poverty is, how it is measured - extreme and the moderate (there are categories!). Though surprisingly, none of these definitions has...

-The Indian Express Internal migration has risen, and for good reason. Policy must shift to support internal mobility, not control it. As India undergoes the transition from a predominantly rural society to one that is urbanising rapidly, there are inevitable flows of people from rural to urban areas. One set of perspectives tells us that this increase in mobility should not be unexpected; after all, classical modernisation and economic development theories do...

-PTI NEW DELHI: The European Commission has allocated 96,748 euros to the disaster relief emergency fund of the Red Cross International to "urgently respond" to the needs of almost 15,000 vulnerable families affected by cyclone Phailin. The European Commission's Humanitarian aid and civil protection department (ECHO) allocated the amount after the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC) appealed for funds to carry out relief operations. More than 10 million...