-PTI A bill to protect the rights of street vendors and regulate street vending activities was introduced in the Lok Sabha today amid opposition uproar over coal block allocation. The Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha by Minister of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Kumari Selja. As per the provisions of the Bill, anyone over 14 years can register with the Town...

-The Telegraph The Supreme Court has said it wants to end judicial monitoring of social welfare schemes, saying the task should be left to experts and courts “can’t be setting economic policy”. The court had earlier taken umbrage at the government for fixing the poverty line at a measly Rs 32 per day per person in urban areas and suggested free distribution of foodgrain, causing consternation in the government which felt that...

-The Hindu In her article in The Hindu, (“Nailing the lie of the land,” Op-Ed, August 23, 2012), Ms Medha Patkar has forcefully and with reason argued against the devastating consequences of land acquisition. Without getting into the concerns raised with regard to the larger “development model” we would like to respond to the issues she has raised with the proposed Bill on Land Acquisition which seem predicated on an understanding...

-PTI Employees of public sector banks have gone on two-day nationwide strike today opposing banking sector reforms and outsourcing of non-core activities, affecting operations. Several private sector banks, foreign banks and ATMs, however, continued to operate normally. The strike call was given by the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), an umbrella organisation of nine unions of employees and officers of PSU banks. They are protesting against banking sector reforms and unilateral implementation of...

-The Hindu A day after the Union Cabinet approved the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood & Regulation of Street Vending) Bill, 2012, the National Association of Street Vendors of India organised a meeting at Jantar Mantar on Saturday and hailed the decision with the hope that Parliament would now pass the Bill in its current session. Association national coordinator Arbind Singh said, “The struggle of street vendors has yielded result. We have...