-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Congress trumpeted the constitution of seventh pay commission as another of its welfare measures in line with land and food bills, in what appeared a thinly-veiled attempt to milk the olive branch to government employees at the upcoming state and Lok Sabha polls. The surprise decision on the pay commission targetting middle-classes comes on the back of legislations to win over the poor and the...

-The Hindu The United Progressive Alliance has brazened it out on another piece of legislation aimed at cosseting and mollycoddling the political class. The Representation of the People (Amendment and Validation) Ordinance, 2013, which overturns a Supreme Court order mandating the disqualification of lawmakers immediately upon their conviction, offends for two reasons. First, the ordinance marks the backdoor entry of a bill that faced opposition in the monsoon session of Parliament....

-The Hindu In richer and poorer States, differing periods of danger for girl children: data Last year, 74,000 more girls under the age of 5 than boys died in India, numbers for which there is no biological explanation, researchers say. Moreover, while many richer States abort female foetuses at a higher rate than some poorer States, once the child is born, many poorer States have a worse record in ensuring her survival,...

-The Telegraph Bhubaneswar: About 115 students of a government school in Puri district were hospitalised today allegedly after consuming iron tablets that were administered as part of their midday meals. The supplementary tablets are given once every week as part of a government scheme to cure anaemia among the children. The state government has ordered a probe into the incident that took place at Gopinathpur Upper Grade Middle English School in Brahmagiri's Jadupur...

-The Hindu The huge deficit in blood availability outside urban centres must jolt the government into legalising unbanked blood supply Twenty-year-old Putul, living in a village 70 km from a district headquarters town in Chhattisgarh, had been in labour for two days and a night. It was her first pregnancy. In order to hasten labour, the local quack administered several injections that increased her uterine contractions. Forty hours after the onset of...