-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Women's employment has taken an alarming dip in rural areas in the past two years, a government survey has revealed. In jobs that are done for 'the major part of the year', a staggering 9.1 million jobs were lost by rural women. In urban areas, the situation was quite the reverse, with over 3.5 million women added to the workforce. This emerges from comparing employment data...

-The Telegraph Mathurapur (West Midnapore): Voters of a tiny hamlet in the heart of Jungle Mahal cast aside the fear of Maoists and exercised their franchise today for the first time in seven years. Since 2006, not a single resident of Mathurapur, about 8km from Lalgarh, has voted in any election - Assembly, panchayat or the Lok Sabha - for fear of "retribution" from the Maoists. Mathurapur was then known as the "home...

-The Hindu blog   Data from the latest Transparency International report throws up few surprises as far as India is concerned. Virtually no key institution or sector in India is seen as being free from corruption in the latest survey of the international anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International, which, in its report 'Global Corruption Barometer 2013' states that bribe paying levels remain "very high" worldwide. Data from the report offers interesting insights into global corruption...

-The Indian Express The recent conviction of eight persons for spreading Naxalism in urban areas of Chhattisgarh again underlines a paradox in the functioning of investigation and prosecution wings of the police. Though the state has consistently topped the chart of Maoist violence across the country, it is yet to secure a single conviction in assault cases. In fact, all the accused even in a high-profile incident like the Tadmetla ambush,...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: Its image pockmarked by a succession of corruption scandals involving the government, Congress has quietly launched a beauty parade of advertising agencies to pick the ones that will buff it up for the upcoming election season. Its single-point brief to the agencies: to play down corruption and hard sell its welfare credentials. Leaders in the Grand Old Party, which, according to insiders, has readied a war chest...