-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Delhi has the lowest proportion of working women of any major Indian city, analysis of newly released Census data confirms. Kolkata and Mumbai have nearly double the proportion of working women as the capital city, and southern cities including Coimbatore and Bengaluru are at the highest end of the spectrum. Data released by the office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India two...

-The Telegraph Calcutta: The Bengal government will seek Calcutta High Court's permission to appoint administrators to run the three-tier panchayat system if rural polls can't be held before the term of the elected bodies ends. The term of most gram panchayats - the lowest tier - ends on June 25. If new bodies are to be formed before that, polls have to be notified by May 17, a possibility officials at Writers'...

-The Hindu The south leads in the number of medical and nursing seats, with for-profit private colleges dominating the scene. It will take major capacity expansion in the government sector to meet WHO norms on access to health professionals. India has achieved major organisational and technological successes but the health system's performance is abysmal. This cannot be attributed to poverty. It is poor health that places India 134th in the Human Development...

-The Hindustan Times Patna: Union Rural Development minister Jairam Ramesh has called for "serious government response" and "monitoring at the highest level" in the cases of violent attacks on whistleblowers in Bihar. He said his ministry was working on a ‘protocol' for whistleblowers, and that would soon be applicable to the entire country. In a letter to chief minister Nitish Kumar, Ramesh said whistleblowers and their families were facing constant torture and...

-The Hindu The government has reiterated that it will implement the National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) in a phased manner to ensure targeted and time-bound delivery of results. Recently, in a reply to a question posed in the Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Rural Development Pradeep Jain had said that it was the NRLM's mandate to guarantee that at least one member from each identified rural poor household, preferably a woman,...