-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Information commissioners across the country are using a light touch to tackle RTI complaints sparing imposition of penalty in over 96% of the cases according to an independent study. Penalties have been imposed in just 3870 or 3.72% of the cases between January 2012 to December 2013 in 21 information commissions across the country. Activists say that commissions are turning a blind eye to delays or...

-The Hindu ‘The government has taken steps to destroy MGNREGA, an act that gives purchasing power to the rural poor, following prejudicial contentions of Bharatiya Janata Party leaders' It's no secret that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) does not like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. MGNREGA is perhaps the only law in the world which guarantees 100 days of wage employment a year to one member of a rural...

-The Hindu Chennai: There is accumulating evidence in India that pollution and contamination are becoming a serious public health issue, which requires focussed strategies to mitigate. "Environment in India is not a lifestyle issue. The missing dimension in the environment debate is the public health debate. One way of getting a larger political focus for environmental issues would be to pitch it as a public health issue," said Jairam Ramesh, former Union...

-The Week Shambhu Kumar, 8, quite liked his job as a domestic help in a small town in Assam. He had to mind two children nearly his age, keep an eye on the ducks and be available for chores all day. It wasn't too hard, and he was well fed, too, though he missed his grandmother, a tea garden labourer. One day, some women from the state education department came to the...

-The Hindustan Times The government plans to put up coal mines for bidding by private steel, power and cement companies and introduce changes in the law to enable commercial mining in the future, signalling its intent to fully open the sector to private players. The new auction-based system will replace the earlier controversial policy of allotting coal blocks based on recommendations of a panel of bureaucrats, which the Supreme Court had struck...