-The Times of India NEW DELHI: With the Sri Lankan cricket team's dramatic protest against playing conditions highlighting the mounting embarrassment over Delhi's pollution, a PMO-headed panel met on Monday and reviewed the need for more accurate real-time monitoring of air quality and measures to control stubble burning. The monitoring of air quality and pollutants was considered necessary so that the sources of Delhi's bad air could be mapped and understood, and...

-The Indian Express Government is prioritising savings over MGNREGA and rights of the poor. Rambeti from Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh, graphically described the predicament of MGNREGA workers like her in a recent press conference in Delhi. “The government repeatedly states that it will not let us die of starvation. But the truth is, it does not allow us to live either.” That is a terrible evaluation of MGNREGA — a landmark legislation enacted...

-The Hindu The increase in crimes against women must prompt better policing and all-round reform The National Crime Records Bureau data for 2016 on two important aspects, violent crime and crime against women, should prompt State governments to make a serious study of the underlying causes. Not all States are equally affected; Uttar Pradesh and Bihar record the maximum number of murders. The national tally on crimes against women, which includes rape,...

-Scroll.in ‘The primary reason for the abysmally low conviction rate for sedition cases is that the law is misapplied,’ said senior advocate Sanjay Hegde. The Indian police registered 112 cases of sedition across the country between 2014 and 2016, but only two have led to convictions, according to a report released by the National Crime Records Bureau on Thursday and a government statement in Parliament last year. The National Crime Records Bureau’s annual...

-Business Standard The Commission says incentives for states will be decided, among others, by "control or lack of it in incurring expenditure on populist measures" New Delhi: States offering debt waivers or slipping on centrally funded programmes, such as Swacch Bharat, could get penalised, according to the terms set for the 15th Finance Commission. The terms of reference of the Commission, set up by the central government this week, makes these conditions...