-The Economic Times   Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday night held consultations with water resources minister PK Bansal on the Mullaperiyar dam - an old dispute between Kerala and Tamil Nadu, which has been reignited by a movie, Dam 999, and fresh cracks on the dam following two minor quakes in the region.  "It is amongst themselves that the matter can be sorted out. We can only play a role of facilitator....

-The Hindu   Civil society groups have demanded an apology from the former Home Secretary of India, G.K. Pillai, for his “insensitive, sexist slandering” remarks on Ishrat Jahan, who was killed in a fake encounter in Gujarat in 2004. “Stung by the Special Investigation Team report, which concluded that Ishrat was executed in cold blood, Mr. Pillai — hard-pressed to defend his affidavit to the Supreme Court that Ishrat was a Lashkar operative...

We have five million children in the labour market, say official figures. Their actual numbers may be four times as many. As a nation, we have failed each one of them…   Millions of our children still labour today, in factories, farms, kilns, mines, homes and city waste dumps, when they should be in school or in a playground. We profoundly fail these children, collectively depriving them of education, play, rest, healthy...

-Mid-Day.com    Drug rehabilitation centres in the city have recorded some shocking changes with regard to the number of narcotic users this year. Rehabilitation centres recorded a shocking increase in the number of pre-teens seeking help for drug abuse. According to many such centres, 13 is currently the average age of drug abusers in the city, while 16 was the age recorded last year. "The lifestyle has changed and it is not just BPO...

UPA’s much-publicised scheme, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), is not creating labour shortage for agriculture and dairy production alone, but the textile and handloom sectors are also facing the heat on this count. A Working Group report on textile and handloom sectors has noted that the scheme was drawing skilled weavers to ‘unskilled’ MGNREGA. It says that high-end weavers are sticking to the profession, but low-end weavers are...