-DNA An allocation of Rs 17,700 crore in the 2013-2014 Union Budget but not a single accountable rupee spent for pre-school education or a plate of food for the homeless children in Mumbai. Yoshita Sengupta investigates the absence of homeless children from ICDS registers Mumbai: In 2010, Ms. Rekha, a homeless woman living on the footpath in Mumbai in her last month of pregnancy, slipped while trying to cross a wall. She...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: This party season, you could save yourself some trouble by keeping the music down. For, the cops intend to be party poopers at raucous gatherings. The force is procuring noise meters to book people found violating the permissible sound limit. If Delhi Police sources are to be believed, cops would not stop at that in their drive for a less noisy city. The hand-held meters would...

-The Hindu Opinion polls should be regulated, not banned. Ideally, it should be self-regulation by pollsters and media organisations. The debate around the latest proposal to ban opinion polls is an opportunity in disguise. Beneath the familiar acrimony of partisan debates, a much-needed middle ground has emerged quietly. All we need is a group of stakeholders - pollsters, researchers, media heads and political leaders - to come together to turn this possibility...

-The Hindu A unique cell phone-based networking system in Chhattisgarh helps Adivasi Gonds share local news and air grievances. Deep in the jungles of Chhattisgarh, a straightforward, earthy man named Naresh Bunkar, field co-ordinator of the Adivasi Santha Manch, picks up his mobile phone and dials +918050068000, a long-distance number in Bangalore. He immediately cuts off and waits. Within seconds, he gets a call from the dialled number, and he hears a...

-The Hindustan Times I remember her face but not her name. She was one of the 30 people I met one winter afternoon in 2009 at Basaguda village in Chhattisgarh's Maoist-hit Bijapur district. A thin, tall woman, she stood at the edge of the group, listening attentively to her neighbour who was narrating an incident of an armed attack on the village that had left them homeless for months. When my...