-The Hindu These families have a far better child sex ratio than the urban Indian average Newly released census data shows families living in slums have a far better child sex ratio than the urban Indian average. Over a third of India's slum dwellers live in unrecognised slums. Over 65 million people live in slums, up from 52 million in 2001, but slum populations have grown slower than the average urban population over...

-Live Mint ‘Give me any job... but please take me out of this hell', says 57-year-old Saraswati, a manual scavenger New Delhi: Saraswati doesn't remember the last time her bare hands touched the statues of the gods lying on a shaky wooden plank in a corner of her one-room house in Farrukhnagar village of Ghaziabad district. She doesn't remember the last time she prayed or fasted. She says every part of her body...

-The Hindu Most of the acquisitions by the Central government and public sector companies in the country's resource-rich State are under laws that bypass the new land Bill The UPA has claimed the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (LARR) Bill 2013 passed by both Houses will reduce forcible acquisition and help tackle Naxalism in mineral-rich areas. But with Coal Bearing Areas Acquisition and Development (CBA)...

-The Economic Times As elections approach and the campaign gets shriller, the UPA and opposition parties are in the market for talking points to pin each other down. The BJP gloats that it created more jobs in its five years than UPA-I managed to create between 2004 and 2009. This is correct: between 1999-2000 and 2004-05 when the BJP was in power, the total number of jobs went up by a little...

-University of Oxford Babies in a rural area of India are less likely to suffer from acute malnutrition where their families are taking part in a job-guarantee programme to provide work with a guaranteed wage, an Oxford University study has found. However, the Indian government programme appears to have no effect on long-term malnutrition. While wages earned through the scheme helped families avoid starvation when seasonal agricultural jobs were in short supply, many...