-The Telegraph New Delhi: When a single woman or unwed mother applies for her child's birth certificate, it must be issued on the basis of her affidavit and without insisting that she disclose the name of the father, the Supreme Court ruled today. The court also held that an unwed Christian mother could assume the guardianship of her child without issuing prior notice to the father for permission as laid down in...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The just released socio-economic and caste census data show more than 1.8 lakh manual scavengers in the country at a time virtually every state government has been denying their existence. Hundreds if not thousands in almost every state, including 2,500 in Bengal, told the surveyors they manually remove untreated human excreta from dry toilets, railway tracks and sewers - a practice banned by Parliament 22 years ago. State...

-The Hindu Although the SECC’s objectives are not likely to be met, it is a big step towards providing accurate information on the well-being of the people. The release of data for rural households from the Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) is only the latest step in India’s tortured history of trying to count its poor. The idea behind the SECC was technocratic. Commissioned by the United Progressive Alliance in 2011,...

THE controversy over Maggi instant noodles has once again highlighted the issues plaguing food safety in India. Not only does the issue raise critical questions about safe food production by multinational companies such as Nestle but it also foregrounds the institutional fault lines when it comes to ensuring food safety. Frontline spoke to Sunita Narain, who heads the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), the organisation instrumental in initiating...

-The Indian Express The private corporate sector has completed construction of just 424 toilets or 8 per cent of its commitment of 5,134 toilets. New Delhi: With just over a month to go for Independence Day, the private corporate sector has fared the worst in building school toilets to meet the target set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on August 15 last year. He had announced construction of toilets in all...