-The Indian Express New street vendors act is welcome. But questions of hawkers' rights come down to our understanding of city spaces and people. The Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Bill, 2014, was finally passed by the Rajya Sabha on February 19 and received presidential assent last week. This is to be lauded. Since the late 19th century, the official view has been to treat street...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Women scholars, politicians and activists from across South Asia expressed concern over escalation of violence, fundamentalism and increased militarization of response to people's movements and urged inclusion of women in peace building. At a seminar organized by UN Women, SAFHR and IDRC on Tuesday, Rebeca Tavares of UN Women said, "Women and men experience war differently. There is a need to convincingly demonstrate that engaging women...

-Reuters   The number of maids has surged by close to 70% from 2001 to 2010, says the ILO New Delhi: Millions of maids working in middle class Indian homes are part of up an informal and "invisible" workforce where they are abused and exploited due to a lack of legislation to protect them, the International Labour Organization (ILO) said on Wednesday. Economic reforms that began in the early 1990s have transformed the...

-The Indian Express Pre-legislative scrutiny is a first step towards greater transparency in law-making. The committee of secretaries chaired by the cabinet secretary has decided that all bills proposed by the government should go through a process of pre-legislative scrutiny. This follows the recommendation of the National Advisory Council, which had suggested that all bills be taken through this process in order to garner public feedback at an early stage. Let us quickly...

-The Hindu Even though fair elections are held at regular intervals for State Assemblies and Parliament, they do not reflect the true consent of the people because a large number of women are missing from the electorate On her arrival in India recently, the words of Gloria Steinem, American feminist and leader of the women's liberation movement, sounded like bells tolling for all women in today's modern Indian society. "I came [to...