-The Hindustan Times There is a widespread perception of policy paralysis in the corridors of power. The two remaining years of the UPA's term is still not too short to reverse the current drift, but time is rapidly running out. The damaged economy needs urgent fixing as does restoring the credibility of an executive racked by scandals and the absence of a sense of direction. The people of the country long...

-The Economic Times Imagine a rural family of five. Mom. Dad. Two kids. And Grandma. Assume too that they are below the poverty line. The day is coming when this family will have to give its biometrics out to myriad agencies.  You know that Nandan Nilekani's Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) or the Registrar General's National Population Register (NPR) has been collecting biometrics for a while now.  But a set of other...

-The Telegraph Teachers who don’t believe in sparing the rod, beware. If an amendment to an existing act on juvenile justice is passed, corporal punishment will for the first time become a standalone provision in the law under which teachers found guilty could be jailed for up to seven years, depending on the nature of injury. As of now there is no definition of corporal punishment except for a provision under the Right...

-The Hindu Magsaysay award winner and the chairperson of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), Dr. Shantha Sinha, on Saturday called for conducting more studies and research towards evolving strong policies to protect the rights of children between 14 and 18 years old. Dr. Sinha said that children in that age group are very vulnerable, with many of them getting married and having at least two to three...

-Tehelka Justice Sujata Manohar on how the Biotechnology Bill is fundamentally flawed IN THE last few years, regulatory systems across the board have been undergoing an overhaul to fit the needs of a new era. Likewise, new laws are being chalked out to meet new needs, and several are receiving flak owing to the loopholes and regressive grounds on which these have been drafted. The relatively more recent one to regulate modern...