-The Hindu There is a Constitutional mandate to hold elections and they should not be postponed, says Court The Calcutta High Court rejected on Monday the West Bengal government's appeal to stay an earlier verdict by a single bench on holding rural polls in 17 districts but observed that hearing on the matter cannot continue for months on end. There is a Constitutional mandate to hold elections and they should not be...

-The Telegraph Meet the Merciful Marxists, never mind the Bolsheviks preferred a bullet to the head and Meera Bhattacharjee graced a public platform in Calcutta to seek the death penalty. Prakash Karat today said the CPM had decided to advocate without exception the abolition of death penalty, almost a decade after its Bengal unit led a vociferous campaign to hang teen rapist and killer Dhananjoy Chatterjee. "The central committee has decided that...

A recent statistical study by Indian researchers suggest that the MNREGA program in rural Andhra Pradesh might be having a positive effect on school enrolment and grades by improving the bargaining power of women within their household, as a consequence of earning wages in the rural job security program. The study is based on data from rural households in 5 districts in Andhra Pradesh and comprised of 3006 children, comparing...

-The Indian Express Chandigarh: Perturbed over the recurring instances of sexual harassment of teenaged girls, panchayats of six villages in Haryana's Mahendergarh district have decided not to send their girls to school from Monday. The decision, taken on Friday by the panchayats, which met at Pal village, will affect 400 girl students. The meeting was chaired by a retired DSP, Amar Singh. According to reports, the panchayats called for a meeting following two...

-The Economic Times The revised, but not yet passed, National Food security Bill (NFSB) represents a crucial political-economic approach to welfare. But how well do we understand the financial and, more importantly, distributional consequences of the revised Bill? Although the revised Bill is likely to simplify the identification of beneficiaries, financial implications will still be substantial. Calculating these implications must include not only the cost of food subsidy, but also additional costs...