-Tehelka The district administration in Karauli has undertaken steps to ban the practice after Change.org's Video Volunteers brought the discriminatory practice into light  When 39-year-old Sunita Kasera, a journalist for Video Volunteers, was sipping tea one hot afternoon in Dangariya village, eastern Rajasthan, she noticed something peculiar. Many women, who left their houses with their footwear on, would abruptly remove them in the middle of the road and wear them again after...

-The Hindu “Study these four men washing down the steps of this unpalatable Bombay hotel. The first pours water from a bucket, the second scratches the tiles with a twig broom, the third uses a rag to slop the dirty water down the steps into another bucket, which is held by the fourth. After they have passed, the steps are as dirty as before… They are not required to clean,” but...

-The Business Standard Madhav Gadgil headed the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel set up by the ministry of environment and forests in 2010. The report zoned 75 per cent of the Western Ghats into different grades of ecological sensitivity. The recommendation was to protect these zones with measures by phasing out mining and introducing organic farming and eco-friendly urbanisation. The report also proposed a development model executed in consultation with the...

-The Times of India A year after trying to provide a dignified life to sex workers, the Supreme Court on Thursday said its orders should not be construed as an encouragement to prostitution. The clarification came from a bench of Justices Altamas Kabir and Gyan Sudha Mishra after additional solicitor general P P Malhotra drew the court's attention to its July 19 order in which it had sought suggestions from the SC-constituted...

-The Telegraph The Centre today told the Supreme Court that neither the courts nor the Election Commission can de-recognise political parties for calling bandhs that result in large-scale destruction of public property. The Centre quoted a 2002 judgment delivered after the Congress had moved Kerala High Court against the CPI for frequently calling bandhs — complete shutdowns, which are illegal — under the ruse of calling hartals, which are optional. According to...