-The Hindu Members of Parliament opposed to the proposed amendment of the RTI Act have vowed to continue building pressure until the political class becomes accountable to the common citizen. Trinamool Congress MP Dinesh Trivedi, who actively opposed the RTI (Amendment) Bill, 2013, told The Hindu that the Bill should never have come up in Parliament. "We need to be actively involved with this movement now. We cannot afford to take a...

-Outlook Ahmedabad: Social activist and Narmada Bachao Andolan leader Medha Patkar today told a local court that the attack during a public meeting at Sabarmati Ashram here after the 2002 riots was a part of a "conspiracy" to kill her. Patkar today deposed before Metropolitan Magistrate A S Desai, in connection with her complaint about the incident that took place eleven years ago. "I feel that this episode was a conspiracy to kill...

-The Hindu "Doing away with Social Impact Assessment for irrigation projects not acceptable" The National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM) on Wednesday hit out at the United Progressive Alliance and the National Democratic Alliance charging them with "colluding" to dilute some of the progressive provisions of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2013. Alleging a "quid pro quo" between the UPA and the NDA for...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: A working group of the Sonia-Gandhi-led National Advisory Council has called for the creation of dedicated human resource departments at central ministries dealing with social programmes to ensure better delivery of the government's flagship schemes. The working group has suggested that the proposed HR wings should be entrusted with the responsibility of framing guidelines for recruitment and training of frontline workers, besides laying down key performance indicators...

-The Hindu Biomass cookstoves and solar lighting improve the health of women and are creating business models that empower them Around the world three billion people have no access to modern cooking fuels. They depend mostly on direct burning of solid biomass for cooking and heating. The smoke from these rudimentary stoves causes some four million deaths annually, destroys millions of tonnes of crops and leads to global warming and large-scale regional...