-Down to Earth Only 25 days of work provided per family as against the guaranteed 100 days of work; wages paid late in 55 per cent cases District administrations in rural West Bengal are resorting to innovative ways in their hurry to spend funds allocated under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme (MNREGS). In the Maoist-affected West Midnapore district, petty contractors are doing the earth work earmarked for MNREGS with...

-The Indian Express This is reflected in YASHDA’s 3-month certificate course on RTI, which hardly has any women Even as the Right to Information, (RTI) Act 2005 is being wielded as a transparency tool, authorities at Yashwantrao Chavan Academy of Development Administration (YASHDA) say women have not being using it as they should. Former Central Information Commissioner (CIC) - a key player in the whole RTI process - Shailesh Gandhi too said...

-Outlook Viewing with concern incidents of acid attacks, the Supreme Court today directed the Centre to convene in six weeks a meeting of Chief Secretaries of all states and Union Territories to address the menace and discuss framing of a law for treatment and compensation to victims. Not satisfied with the steps taken by the Centre to regulate sale of acid and to curb its use for attacking women, a bench headed...

-The Indian Express On the Delhi rape case, let’s keep the indignation, disturb legislative slumbers The Verma Committee Report (VCR) speaks against civil society and political rape cultures. The poignancy and urgency of the VCR owes much to the experience of conversing with rape survivors and traumatised children. A precious message of the VCR is this: one may not take law reform seriously without taking human and social suffering equally seriously. The committee...

-The Hindu MGNREGA records manipulated; workers’ wages siphoned off from accounts Rankikalan (Jharkhand): At noon on Tuesday last, a dozen men gathered on the banks of the Auranga near Rankikalan village in Latehar district. As they performed the dashmirites, the wailing from the huts in the village continued. Bhuiatoli village had lost 23 men, women and children when the truck in which they were returning to the village after working on landlords’...