-The Hindu Bangalore: Many persons with disabilities are jobless and unable to get or denied their paltry pension Seven-year-old Sadiya lies awake as her parents and siblings, who have just returned from an overnight trip to a dargah, catch up on their sleep. Lying on her back, no taller than an average toddler, she wails when she spots strangers at her door. Sadiya shares the tin-roofed 10 ft by 10 ft space...

-The Telegraph Calcutta: Demand for commercial gas has risen sharply in Bengal, prompting suggestions that the subsidy cap on domestic cylinders has unmasked one of the worst-kept secrets in the country. The sudden spurt is being attributed to demand from commercial establishments and auto-rickshaws that were so far depending heavily on the subsidised cooking gas rampantly pilfered from the domestic segment. “We have been selling 6,000 (commercial) cylinders a day (to establishments) after...

-The Times of India In a significant moment for UPA-II's plans to make cash transfers a reform motif and a pro-poor vote hook, Prime MinisterManmohan Singh and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi will hand out Aadhar number 21 crore in the Rajasthan village of Dudu on Saturday. Situated some 60-odd km from Jaipur, Dudu will be the stage for the launch of a scheme integrating benefits like rural employment guarantee, pensions and state...

-The Hindu Government seeks to address cyber attacks without compromising free speech and privacy National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon on Monday opened up the national security regime to the private sector, with the launch of a cyber security report titled ‘Recommendations of Joint Working Group on Engagement With Private Sector On Cyber Security’. The Hindu was the first to report that such an initiative would be launched this week. “The enormous potential for...

-The Economist Growing inequality is one of the biggest social, economic and political challenges of our time. But it is not inevitable, says Zanny Minton Beddoes IN 1889, AT the height of America’s first Gilded Age, George Vanderbilt II, grandson of the original railway magnate, set out to build a country estate in the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina. He hired the most prominent architect of the time, toured the chateaux...