Reservation for Muslims in jobs and education — feverishly anticipated over the past two years and expected to be announced ahead of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections — might turn out to be a headache the Congress unthinkingly bought itself. As Muslim groups have been arguing, the route under the United Progressive Alliance government's consideration — a 6 per cent Muslim sub-quota within the 27 per cent OBC quota — would...

Karnataka, India’s IT success story and its most preferred destination for foreign investment, boasts of the country’s highest per capita income. Its economic indicators are nothing short of superlative and yet the South Indian State accounts for thousands of child deaths due to malnutrition. A recent report shows that despite high SGDP growth and heightened economic activity, Karnataka fares poorly in hunger index and child malnutrition. A recent report by news...

-PTI   Studies suggest that MGNREGA has triggered shortage of labour for agricultural operations like sowing and harvesting in the key agri states and has also pushed up general wage level, Parliament was informed today.   These were the findings of state-level studies conducted by Agro Economic Research Centres under the Ministry of Agriculture, Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha. The studies were conducted in Karnataka,...

The Manmohan Singh government has decided to create a sub-quota for Muslims within the 27 per cent reservation for Other Backward Castes (OBCs) and an announcement is likely before the Uttar Pradesh elections next summer. Sources said inter-ministerial consultations had been completed and the law ministry was finalising the contours of the proposal to be placed before the Union cabinet in the next few weeks. Indications are that a sub-quota of 6...

-PTI   Ashodaya Samiti, a sex workers' collective in Mysore, has for the first time tied up with foreign universities and institutions to conduct a comprehensive research on improving women's Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) in India and in Africa.  Ashodaya Samiti has joined a consortium consisting of universities and institutions in five countries, of which three are in Africa, to conduct SRH research services through identifying best practices in delivering a combined...