-The Indian Express Normalisation of surveillance destroys what sustains a civilisation — human interaction filled with trust, care. Even though Delhi Government’s decision to install CCTV cameras in school classrooms has generated an interesting debate, it is important to see beyond the classrooms, and reflect more intensely on the meaning of living in a society that normalises and sanctifies surveillance. As an ideology that seeks to become hegemonic, the practice of surveillance...

-The Indian Express In the wake of life’s savings lost to scams, children have dropped out of school, marriages have been put off, people have left homes, and suicide, say some, is the only option. The Indian Express on the stories forgotten in the headlines. Most days, Raqib Sardar can be seen hanging around a tea shop at Sonarpur Railway Station in South 24 Parganas district, 30 km from Kolkata, looking...

-Livemint.com The Income Tax department is in the process of chalking out a new policy which will reward taxpayers who are not only honest but also consistent in filing ITRs. The rewards could include priority access at airports and Railway stations. New Delhi: Want to beat the queue at airports, Railway stations and toll gates on highways? Filing your income tax returns (ITR) honestly and consistently every year on time can be...

-Firstpost.com Ludhiana: Free meals, payment in advance, free liquor to ease aching limbs after a hard day’s work. Migrant labour in Punjab, mainly from Bihar, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh, the mainstay of the state’s agriculture sector, has never had it so good. The problem, however, is the decreasing availability of this labour. Ask Baljinder Singh, a farmer with a 10-acre holding in Dakha village. Come sowing season in mid-June, Baljinder...

-The Hindu Business Line The rejection of the the Gadgil panel report, by all the six States along the Western Ghats, has proved to be a costly error The floods of catastrophic dimensions that ravaged Kerala recently have brought into sharp focus the all-round ecological destruction caused by human interference in the State’s hilly terrains. The fact that there were 12 major landslides and hundreds of minor ones within a fortnight in the...