-Frontline In a situation of increasing life expectancy and crumbling traditional support structures, a universal social pension scheme that does not rely on contribution by a person or an employer can help the elderly. INDIA prides itself on being a "young" society, likely to benefit from a demographic dividend as children and young people move into working age groups over the next decade. This optimistic view assumes that society will be able...

-The Hindu     To be able to deliver appropriate legal services to the rural and tribal communities, we need an alternative delivery system with a different model of legal service providers Delivery of legal services to the rich and the corporate class is organised not through individual lawyers but through a series of networked law firms. These firms employ hundreds of lawyers and domain experts all over the country to provide highly specialised...

-PTI MUMBAI: Japanese brokerage Nomura today said with real rural wages moderating, both rural demand and inflationary pressures will moderate in the medium-term, giving the much-needed room to the Reserve Bank to lower interest rates. "Though rural wages continue to rise, the pace of growth is moderating. Growth in the average daily wage rate for agricultural labourers dipped to 13.1 per cent in August year- on-year, which is significantly slower than 18.5...

-The Hindustan Times In many ways, they are the nowhere people. Now a Unesco report Social Inclusion of Internal Migrants in India puts the number of internal migrants at around a third of the population. This number is far higher than the number of migrants who leave India to work abroad. Yet, since most internal migrants move back and forth according to where they can find work, they get left out...

-The Hindu Delayed payments to poor households threaten to scuttle scheme to build toilets under Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan Churu (Rajasthan): Three years ago, Churu, a town of 1.2-lakh people in the Thar desert, was ranked India's dirtiest town by the Planning Commission. Two years ago, the overall district had over 40 per cent households with no toilet of their own. Today, the district is close to its goal of becoming open defecation-free,...