-Kafila.org This fact-finding exercise was coordinated by the CENTRE FOR POLICY ANALYSIS. Team members were the human rights activist and former civil servant Harsh Mander; former Director-General of the Border Security Force, E N Rammohan; Professor Kamal Mitra Chenoy of Jawaharlal Nehru University; National Integration Council member John Dayal; senior journalist Sukumar Muralidharan and CPA Director and senior editor Seema Mustafa. Introduction and Overview The first impression of the Muzaffarnagar countryside, now green...

-The Economic Times In the leaky system of welfare delivery, databases are the newest valve that governments are installing to ensure that benefits reach those-and only those -they are intended for. Since December 2012, for instance, the government of Madhya Pradesh has been appending on to the Centre's Socio Economic and Caste Census a host of household-level data: bank account numbers, NREGA card numbers, welfare entitlements, land ownership, whether their house is...

-The Hindu     Recent studies contradict the view that emissions from cell phone cause irreparable damage to health Chennai: Recent studies in institutions across the world have contradicted reports of radiation from cell phones and their towers damaging the eggs of sparrows, and thereby contributing to their reducing numbers. In the last two years, universities in Kerala, Assam and several Indian and international conservation agencies have raised concerns about the decreasing number of sparrows...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: For the longest time, most calls that came to Childline would be from a kid on a railway platform asking for help after a brutal police beating or desperately looking for shelter. But the decline of public call offices (PCOs) across the country have led to a sharp drop in calls from marginalized children to India's first toll-free helpline for children in distress. The decline...

-PTI New Delhi: Citizens will be able to file Right to Information (RTI) applications online from tomorrow in all central government ministries and departments in the national capital. Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions V Narayanasamy will launch the portal - www.rtionline.gov.in - at a function in New Delhi on Wednesday. Moving further towards greater transparency in governance, the government has started as a pilot project the facility of filing...