-The Hindustan Times   Unidentified assailants killed a woman Right to Information (RTI) activist in front of her residence here around 11am on Tuesday. She was scheduled to attend a signature campaign in support of Anna Hazare's agitation a couple of hours later. Shehla Masood, 39, was shot in the neck point blank as she was getting into her car parked in front of her house in the upscale Koh-e-Fiza locality in...

NCM orders compensation for boys framed in Mecca Masjid blast case Four years after the Andhra Pradesh police picked up 21 Muslim boys and wrongly accused them of involvement in the Mecca Masjid bomb blast, there is finally some hope that they can resume normal life without the stigma of terrorism. The hope comes via the National Commission for Minorities (NCM), which recently made four key recommendations to the State government. A...

-MSN   Jalgaon, Jul 13 (PTI) A debt-ridden farmer allegedly committed suicide by jumping into a well in north Maharashtra, police said today. The body of Vishwanath Kashinath Baviskar, a resident of Sukali village, was recovered today, they said. Baviskar had taken loans from four private money lenders. He was unable to repay the amount due to frequent losses in farming, they said. Unable to bear harassment of the money lenders, the farmer decided...

In Rajasthan’s Neem ka Thana region, the echoes of mining explosives are like clockwork, on the hour every hour. For some time now, another feature has become almost routine here: houses, left unsteady by the explosions, propped up by wooden poles or bricks. Tired of no recourse and continued government harassment, villages have begun a movement to stop illegal mining, primarily led by ex-army servicemen. It began on March 1 this year...

Whether it is in education, health or jobs, there are enormous differences in outcomes in modern India, so much so that it often seems like two countries exist within one. Economic opportunities have undoubtedly expanded for a section of India's population, but there are serious obstacles in the path of many. Nobel laureate and development economist Amartya Sen has written about the 'conversion handicap' which, quite separately from an 'earnings...