-The Indian Express The first nine months of the new BJP government has only underscored its anti-poor, anti-rural image. The substantive and substantial changes in rural development have been restrictive in nature. The new government has worked to undermine the legal and financial framework of MGNREGA, substantially weakened the provisions of the land acquisition act through an ordinance and, through year-end budget cuts, they have undermined almost every social sector programme, reportedly...

-The Hindu It will need a caring partnership between the Dongria Kondh, civil society organisations and the government to figure out how to navigate the very difficult terrain the tribals face Till last week, I'd never visited Niyamgiri, scene of the iconic fight between the Dongria Kondh tribal group and Vedanta, a powerful multinational corporation bent on mining in the area. So why have I titled this ‘revisiting Niyamgiri'? Partly because I've...

-The Hindu Business Line Netizens up in arms on social media, seek better law instead The Centre on Wednesday asked Internet Service Providers (ISP) to block 32 websites citing national security concerns, especially from terror group ISIS. The move created a flutter on social networking sites, as most of the Web sites, such as archive.org, vimeo.com, github.com, pastebin.com, codepad.org and paste2.org, were being used by global communities like application developers for free movies...

-The Hindu In the name of economic reforms and development, the government has taken a significant step backward in India's march to land justice. The pushing through of the Land Act ordinance violates all democratic norms On Monday, the Bharatiya Janata Party government cleared the proposed ordinance to amend the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act 2013. This amendment, insofar as has been made known...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Centre has proposed stringent and uniform safety standards for all cars from next year to ensure there are no fatalities if a crash occurs up to a speed of 56kmph. The guidelines, likely to be issued by February, seem to have been triggered by the failure of most India-made cars to clear a "crash" test conducted by a UK-based safety agency over the past few months. "We want...