-The Hindu Study says 10 per cent of Rajasthan's population migrates seasonally in search of work Jaipur: As many as 5.79 million people in Rajasthan, or 10 per cent of the State's population, migrates seasonally in search of employment, says a new study on migration and labour. Approximately 4.38 million households thus send a person or more to other States in search of work seasonally, it adds. The number of migrants per household...

-CNN-IBN Kerala: Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme had helped women improve their social and economic status, according to a study by a university. The study by the Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean Studies (KUFOS) showed that 97.3% of workers under the scheme are women. Conducted as part of a project on Impact Assessment Study of MGNREG scheme in Alappuzha District, the study was funded by Kerala State Institute of Rural...

-The Hindu Business Line They drop out on account of cultural taboos and lack of follow up efforts by implementing agencies Despite opportunities and systematic community-driven handholding support from the Government and non-government bodies, women might still choose not to participate in the economic development process. Under the purview of the National Rural Livelihoods Mission, the world's largest poverty alleviation initiative, the Government and NGOs are targeting women from the poorest households...

-The United Nations States must be transparent about the nature of their electronic mass surveillance programmes, an independent United Nations counter-terrorism expert said today as he warned about the impact such measures might have on individuals' right to privacy. "States need to squarely confront the fact that mass surveillance programmes effectively do away with the right to online privacy altogether," Ben Emmerson, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights...

-The Hindustan Times The country is ostensibly in the throes of a great social movement for sanitation. Gandhi's name is evoked, Prime Minister Narendra Modi leads from the front, ministers lift brooms for cameras, and officers, college and school children take oaths against littering and to clean their surroundings. Earlier the PM pledges in his Independence Day speech toilets for girls and boys in all schools. It appears that the squalor of...