-The Telegraph The Maharashtra government today cleared a proposal to ban the manufacture, storage, distribution and sale of gutkha and paan masala. The state has become the fourth, after Kerala, Madhya Pradesh and BIhar, to impose such curbs. The decision was taken at a cabinet meeting presided over by chief minister Prithviraj Chavan this evening, sources said. But there was no announcement as the Assembly’s monsoon session is on. It could be done...

Census 2011 data bring into the open Maharashtra’s terrible record in sex-selective abortions. In early June, Vijaymala Patekar, a mother of four girls, haemorrhaged to death at a hospital in Parli, Beed district, Maharashtra. She was reportedly in her second trimester of pregnancy. Her family had allegedly forced her to abort the foetus when they learnt it was a girl child. Sudam Munde, the doctor who performed the procedure, fled Parli but...

-The Times of India India's official unemployment rate was 3.8% for the last year and higher for urban than rural areas according to statistics released by the Labour Bureau on Tuesday. Goa, Kerala BIhar and West Bengal were among the states with high unemployment while Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Punjab were among the states with low unemployment. The 'Second Annual Employment and Unemployment Survey 2011-12', conducted by the Union Ministry of Labour...

-The Hindu A new website that will keep track of how far the RTE Act is being implemented RTE Forum, the 10,000 strong NGO and civil society platform working for the implementation of the RTE Act, has finally launched its website. As part of the RTE Forum’s agenda of formalising its structure, the website aims at strengthening the forum's existing state chapters and forming new ones. Mr. Ambarish Rai, RTE Forum National...

-The Telegraph Ranchi, July 6: Nagri villagers leading a violent agitation against proposed campuses of three national institutes of learning do not want political leaders to hijack their movement to get back the 218 acres acquired by the government in the ’50s. “Leaders like Dayamami Barla, Bandhu Tirkey, Stan Swami etc have misled us by saying they would find a legal and political solution to the problem. But the result is that...