-The Hindustan Times The women's reservation Bill was passed in the Rajya Sabha in 2010 but has not yet been passed in the Lok Sabha. No other legislation in our democratic history has been discussed for so many years (15 years) without being passed or rejected. Such a delay has happened even though major parties support the Bill and there are 1.2-1.5 million women who hold elected office at the local level...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Supreme Court has declined to entertain a plea that women be allowed to medically terminate pregnancy after the 20-week deadline fixed by law as many carry foetuses with abnormalities in the last trimester. A bench of Justices S.J. Mukhopadhyaya and Kurien Joseph declined to pass any order on the plea and instead allowed counsel Divya Jyothi to withdraw the petition with liberty to come out with an...

-Outlook New Delhi: National Human Rights Commission today issued notice to Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka governments, taking suo motu cognizance of a media report which claimed that over three lakh migrant workers from Odisha would be unable to vote in the coming Lok Sabha polls as they are "tied in brick kilns" in three states. The Commission observed that the contents of the news report, "if true, raise a serious...

-The Business Standard The recent US-India friction over trade is being driven by Big Pharma Apart from the deterioration of the business environment generally, which impacts both domestic and foreign investors, retrospective taxation has figured most prominently in the media as the principal cause of growing scepticism among foreign investors. Entirely missing from the discourse has been an equally potent factor with wholly foreign origins: the hijacking of the economic policy...

-The Hindustan Times A report commissioned by the ministry of rural development has confirmed the findings of an HT field investigation - published on December 29, 2013 - that delay in payment of wages under MGNREGA was a major contributor to suicides among workers in Maharashtra. The report by the Committee of Experts (CoE) said: "Though the state government has made the claim that it is unfair to link the deaths...