-The Financial Express In a move that may be aimed at narrowing down the scope of the Mahatma Gandhi NREGA Act. In a move that may be aimed at narrowing down the scope of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), the Centre has informally asked states to focus its implementation in the 2,500 blocks designated as backward under the Intensive Participatory Planning Exercise. The Rural Development ministry, in July this...

-The Hindu Business Line   Anonymity can protect unpopular individuals from retaliation - and their ideas from suppression - at the hand of an intolerant society The Supreme Court of India has, thankfully, decided to reconsider an earlier order calling for revealing the identity of the whistle-blower while hearing a petition alleging gross misconduct against the Director of the country's foremost police agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). On September 15, a...

-Press Information Bureau/ Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan has expressed grief over the national loss in valuable human resources which is owed to the rising tendency of young people to commit suicide when facing seemingly unconquerable adversity. Inaugurating a mass contact programme in Thrissur, Kerala, today to conscientise the general public about the increasing rate of suicides, Dr Harsh Vardhan said, "The mounting incidence of...

-Economic and Political Weekly The provisional results of the Sixth Economic Census (2013) of establishments in the non-agricultural sector suggest that this is not a census count. A comparison with the National Sample Survey numbers shows that the number of workers in the latest census may be only a little over half the actual number. There also appear to be some serious omissions in individual states. R Krishnaswamy and S L Shetty...

It is said that the Central Water Commission (CWC) has failed miserably in September 2014 to furnish information on river flow and raise alarm to people of Jammu and Kashmir living in the downstream areas in the midst of heavy rainfall. The CWC is responsible for making forecasts of floods in all flood-prone areas and provides advisory to the states for tackling floods. The NGO South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers...