-The Hindu Just 39 of the 568 Ministers in State govts are women When no women joined Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal in taking the oath of office on Saturday, Delhi joined the ranks of seven other States with no women Ministers. In the rest of the States too, women representation in the Ministries is low, and often restricted to certain portfolios. With all State Assemblies put together, 360 of the country's...

-The Hindu Actual revenue from RTI services continues to be pegged low, year after year Hyderabad: Estimates of revenue generated through RTI (Right to Information) queries and actual revenue generated by the State government, has revealed great disparity over the years. Each RTI applicant is required to pay a sum for information demanded. Going by data from the last few years, revenue estimated by the GAD (General Administration Department) of united Andhra Pradesh...

-Business Standard Limits funds to states under the scheme and still looking to reduce labour budget ratios The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government had begun work on amending the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), restricting the coverage to a few backward districts, leaving out large portions of Punjab, Haryana, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Kerala from its ambit. The plan was eventually shelved after protests and a debate in...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: International health activists have joined their Indian counterparts in decrying what they say are Barack Obama's dual policy on big drug companies, pledging to break their stranglehold in the US but promoting their interests in India. The activists claimed yesterday that the India-US joint statement, issued during Obama's visit to India, contains signals that the Indian government could be preparing to weaken its intellectual property regulations on medicines,...

-The Tribune The biggest lesson of the last 10 years since the Right to Information Act came into force is that Indian democracy, if it has to be meaningful, has to have a strong, effective RTI regime. That regime has to be equally owned by those who govern and those who are governed. TEN years after the Right to Information Act promised the country a "practical regime of right to information for...