KEY TRENDS   • According to National Sample Survey report no. 583: Persons with Disabilities in India, the percentage of persons with disability who received aid/help from Government was 21.8 percent, 1.8 percent received aid/help from organisation other than Government and another 76.4 percent did not receive aid/ help *8   • As per National Family Health Survey-4 (NFHS-4), the Under-five Mortality Rate (U5MR) was 57.2 per 1,000 live births (for the non-STs it was 38.5)...

-Tehelka A public issue is not truly public unless Markandey Katju has passed judgement. Rahul Kotiyal and Ajachi Chakrabarti stand downwind "Journalists" writes Markandey Katju, with little sense of irony, "comment on everything under the sun." He goes on to say that when the shoe is on the other foot, when someone comments on journalism, it is misconstrued as an attack on press freedom. That when he announces he is appointing a...

-The Economist A steadily rising Muslim Population continues to fall behind IT TELLS you something hopeful perhaps that, for all the horror unleashed when two bombs laid by presumed militant Islamists ripped through a crowd in Hyderabad on February 21st, India’s public response has been muted. The blasts killed 16 and injured 117. Both the method of the attack (bombs in metal tiffin boxes strapped to bicycles) and its location (near a...

-The Hindustan Times Former employee of Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) Aizaz Ahmed Mirza, who had been arrested on terror charges and was released on bail on Tuesday, claimed he was innocent and had worked hard to get the job. Mirza, 26, had been arrested along with journalist Muthi Ur Rehman and two others in August 2012, on charges of plotting a terror attack. His brother Shoaib Mirza is the...

-The New York Times Blog On March 23, when students and prominent Indians meet at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania for the India Economic Forum, one person will be conspicuous by his absence: Narendra Modi. The chief minister of Gujarat was invited to join the conference via Skype to discuss Gujarat’s development model, but student organizers of the annual conference withdrew their invitation on Sunday after a few University...