-The Indian Express In Gujarat, growth relies on indebtedness. And relegates development. The Gujarat pattern of development has often been arraigned from the left because of its social deficits. Indeed, the state's social indicators do not match its economic performance. With 23 per cent of its citizens living below the poverty line in 2010, Gujarat does better than the Indian average - 29.8 per cent - but it reduced this proportion by...

-The Indian Express Holding back the RTI amendment is not the best way to address public concerns about party finance. There has been great civil society uproar over the Right to Information (Amendment) Bill, 2013, which aims to extricate political parties from mandatory public disclosures, and nullify the Central Information Commission's recent order. While passing the amendment would have been all too easy, given the broad political consensus, a last-minute turnaround in...

-The Hindu     CAG report uncovers forestland scam, says government lost thousands of crores The Comptroller and Auditor General in its latest report has unearthed a massive scam involving forestlands being given over to industry without following laid down regulations - in violation of Supreme Court orders and forest laws - and involving large-scale misuse of funds leading to a loss to the government running into thousands of crores. The report blames some...

-The United Nations A United Nations treaty entering into force today will extend the labour and social rights of some 53 million domestic workers around the world. From today, the Domestic Workers Convention will be legally binding for signatory countries. The treaty was adopted in 2011 by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and is the first of its kind. "Today's entry into force of Convention 189 sends a powerful signal to more than...

-The Indian Express   Rajya Sabha on Wednesday passed the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2013. The proposed law, which will replace the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 that suffers from various shortcomings, including silence on the issue of resettlement and rehabilitation of those displaced, stipulates mandatory consent of at least 70 per cent of landowners for acquiring land for Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects...