-PTI The Supreme Court today slammed the Centre for "fooling" people and not banning the manual scavenging despite its repeated promises that it would amend the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act to eliminate the practice. "We don’t want this type of vague affidavit. This shows you (Centre) are not serious. You are saying the same thing for the last six months. You are fooling the people...

-The Hindu The Supreme Court on Tuesday pulled up the Centre for its callousness in not enacting a law to ban manual scavenging despite giving repeated assurances that it would soon amend the relevant Act. Earlier, Additional Solicitor General Harin Raval told a Bench of Justices H.L. Dattu and C.K. Prasad that the Cabinet note was ready for bringing amendments to the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition)...

-Outlook Kejriwal’s original experiment in Sundar Nagri lies in tatters It was the summer of 2002. An IRS officer on study leave from the Income Tax department would travel daily to the slums of Sundar Nagri, in the north-east district of Delhi, close to the Uttar Pradesh border. Working with friends, he aimed to make the locality a powerful example of people’s empowerment. He was then an unknown; now, everyone knows...

-The Indian Express In Raipur hospitals, a joke doing the rounds these days is: “Soon, someone will file an RTI to know the number of uteruses left in Chhattisgarh.” What has prompted it is, however, no joke. If a series of media reports in the state is to be believed, the uteruses of thousands of women have been removed in unnecessary operations. These reports talk of doctors cheating BPL families by encouraging...

It is a manifestation of the Indian summer — the electricity goes out momentarily at the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) head office just before an interview with the director general and mission director, Ram Sewak Sharma. Despite glitches, mostly more consequential than power outages, Sharma reveals that it has been a busy few months for the UIDAI, after it reached the mandated number of 200 million enrolments by March...