-The Times of India LONDON: India should give political asylum to American whistleblower Edward Snowden for exposing the US cyber snooping programme that targeted India in a big way, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told TOI on Wednesday. Assange, who is holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since June 19 last year, said in an exclusive interview that India was among the first countries he had approached for asylum. But he...

-Economic and Political Weekly   A report on the 2013 deliberation of the Kolkata Group at its 10th workshop which focused on healthcare, the status of women and social justice in India. A K Shiva Kumar (akshivakumar@gmail.com) is convener of the Kolkata Group workshops which are organised by Pratichi (India) Trust, the Harvard Global Equity Initiative and UNICEF India. At the 10th annual Kolkata Group workshop in February this year, 40 policymakers, development practitioners,...

-The Hindu Kuala Lumpur: The horrific gang-rape of a young paramedical student in New Delhi on December 16, 2012 overshadowed India's achievements at the three-day Women Deliver conference that concluded here on Thursday. The episode figured in discussions held over three days even as the Indian delegates attempted to highlight the successes made in improving the reproductive and child health. On Wednesday morning, when philanthropist Melinda Gates acknowledged the achievements of the Bihar...

-IANS Trinamool Congress MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar Wednesday said she was wrong in terming the Park Street rape case as a "sex deal gone wrong" and apologised to the West Bengal Human Rights Commission, which had summoned her. "Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar Wednesday appeared before the commission and admitted that her remarks about the Park Street rape case were wrong and insensitive and duly apologised for it," commission joint secretary Sujay Haldar said. The...

-The Hindu   In making a case for the investigative agency's autonomy, the Supreme Court is only stepping in where the executive has failed The proceedings in the Coalgate case earlier this week saw the Supreme Court asking the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) many uncomfortable questions. The Court also asked the government to tell it what steps it was going to take to enact a law to ensure the CBI's autonomy. The...