-Countercurrents.org   The events of last over two decades have shown us, more than before that the efforts of dividing the nation by communal forces have been a major obstacle to social peace and process of development. In India while the communal violence began with the Jabalpur riot of 1961, it is from last couple of decades especially from 1980s that the divisive politics has tried to drive a wedge between different...

-The Hindu Kochi: An emergency meeting of the representatives of Keezhmadu grama panchayat on Tuesday asked the RubberMark authorities to immediately stop work on digging a pond at its Rubber Park in Keezhmadu near Perumbavur. Several residents nearby the unit were injured on Monday after the police resorted to a lathicharge to disperse agitators who had alleged that the construction activity had rendered most of the wells in the area dry. Laiza Sebastian,...

-The Telegraph Bengal - Defrauded Many households in Calcutta have a domestic help or a driver who has lost money by investing in Saradha schemes - a common thread that has spun a perception that the poor are the sole victims of the sham company. But Sudipta Sen's promise of high returns had blurred the divide between the haves and the have-nots as well as the educated and the uneducated. Travels across the semi-urban...

-The Times of India BHOPAL: Women health workers in Madhya Pradesh are refusing to distribute condoms in a government-sponsored family planning measure, citing it as an exercise 'against their dignity'. "We are working for the implementation of other schemes and initiatives, but this is awkward. It is against our dignity," said Mithlesh Vishwakarma, president of ASHA (accredited social health activists) workers association in Damoh district. ASHA workers are either daughters- in-law or...

-The Hindu   Investment in a scheme that guarantees rural employment with minimum wages should be seen as complementary and not alternative to development activities A recent paper by the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) has argued that the "push" factors of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) are not as important as the economic growth "pull" factors, for increasing agricultural wages. The paper has received wide media...