-The Hindu “The child of the poor who goes missing is just a number in the police record, it is only when a rich man’s child goes missing that the media, the police and the politicians really bother,’’ says Raj Kumar, who along with his wife continue to wait for the return of their eight-year-old daughter Kajol who went missing in April 2010 from in front of her house in Nangloi...

-The Indian Express A little over 11 years ago, when the Congress defeated the Asom Gana Parishad and Tarun Gogoi took over as chief minister of Assam, people had their doubts. Would this man who had spent most of his political career since 1971 as a Lok Sabha member be able to run this state? The state, with its unique tangle of ethnicity and politics, has, after all, always been a...

-The Hindu The West Bengal government got a major relief on Friday when the Supreme Court extended the interim order of suspension of the Calcutta High Court judgment that struck down the law intended to reclaim Singur land leased out to the Tatas and to give a part of it back to farmers who were yet to receive compensation for it. The High Court, while delivering judgment on June 22, suspended the...

-The Hindu In a far-reaching decision, the Rajasthan government has announced that a person below 18 years will be considered as a child labourer if he or she is employed. Accepting the long-pending demand of child rights groups, the government announced a comprehensive standard operating procedure (SOP) for identification, rescue, protection and rehabilitation of children employed in various occupations. The decision has come as a major triumph for advocacy groups seeking the abolition...

Two sets of government data on UPA government's most famous flagship programme Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), for which Rs. 33000 crore was earmarked in 2012-13 budget, provide widely different figures for several states, a feature which experts say is indicative of the corruption in the scheme and weakness of social audit or accountability. The government has increasingly relied on Management Information System (MIS) for monitoring NREGA at...