-Reuters NEW DELHI (TrustLaw) - About 60 percent of Indian women have no access to family planning services, giving them little control over their bodies and slowing efforts to boost human development indicators, said the head of the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA). Human development indicators cover health, education and living standards. India, Asia's third-largest economy, is set to overtake China as the world's most populous nation by 2030. But, despite its impressive economic...

Raising the bar on child labour, the government is set to debar employment of children below the age of 14 in any industry. Only those between 14 to 18 years can be employed except in hazardous industries. The existing Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, allows employment of children of up to 14 years of age in the industries not considered to be hazardous. Hazardous industries include tobacco, stone crushing,...

-The Hindu The All India Democratic Women's Association has expressed unhappiness over the Marriage Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2010 and the amendments made to it, as reintroduced in the Rajya Sabha on Monday, that make irretrievable breakdown of marriage a ground for divorce, giving women the right to marital assets, including the marital home. However, there is no provision for strengthening maintenance laws. In its letter, the AIDWA has appealed to Rajya Sabha...

Depletion of groundwater and its increasing pollution could be leading to a silent, nationwide public health crisis as aquifers in many stretches across India are becoming unfit for drinking, according to the government's own figures. Data submitted in Parliament by the water resources ministry on Monday shows groundwater in pockets of 158 out of the 639 districts has gone saline. It says in pockets across 267 districts, groundwater contains excess fluoride;...

The implementation of Right to Education Act may have got a shot in the arm with the recent Supreme Court ruling upholding the 25% reservation in unaided private schools for children from lower income group families but inAndhra Pradesh (and possibly other states in the country), the Act might soon figure among the many well-intentioned government schemes that do not impact, leave alone benefit, its target group. At best, the...