-The Indian Express The recently-released India Rural Development Report, which is endorsed by the government, says 7% of the rural population is ‘very poor’; villages in eastern Indian states are the worst affected. A World Bank report released this week has proposed a new way to measure poverty, which suggests that India may have been overestimating the number of its poor. According to a separate set of figures and analysis endorsed by...

-Livemint.com Loathed and mistrusted as they might be, lawyers from all backgrounds—economic, ethnic or otherwise—are needed to make for a vibrant society The lack of diversity in the legal profession, as evidenced by the inequality in the appointments of senior counsel at the Supreme Court and high courts, is a serious issue at the top level, but it actually starts at the very bottom, according to research surveying students who entered...

-PTI NEW DELHI: Various rights groups have urged the government to hold a public consultation on the proposed amendments to the Child Labour Bill, which they warned will end up legitimizing economic exploitation of children and rob them of their childhood. They have written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking a public consultation on the amendments and called for the removal of the provision seeking to legitimise use of children under 14...

-The Hindu Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey speak about the MKSS experience and their campaign for citizen-centric accountability. The Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan was founded in Bhim on May 1, 1990 with the aim of organising people at the grassroots. By addressing issues of minimum wage and land and reading out official records, thereby exposing the enormous corruption in the system, it mobilised peasants and workers in rural Rajasthan. A dharna held...

Due to the annual decline in under-5 mortality rate by almost 7% during 2008-13, the Government is hopeful of India attaining the target 5 of Millennium Development Goal-4 i.e. reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the U5MR. This has been revealed in a press release on checking child mortality rate by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, dated 28 April, 2015.   However, experts think that this will be...