-Hindustan Times They are called cafeteria sessions. At lunch time, Greenpeace fund-raisers wander among hundreds, sometimes thousands, of young men and women packing the cafeterias of Indian companies. It’s not a good idea to name these companies. Greenpeace’s activities include forest preservation, renewable-energy promotion and fighting on behalf of local communities. These appear to be popular causes among young professionals. Donations of Rs 300 to Rs 500 constitute about 80% of...

-The Indian Express A little more than a week ago, World Bank chief Jim Yong Kim praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for launching the Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), which he called an “extraordinary effort” at financial inclusion. According to the Union finance ministry, India has attained 99 per cent financial inclusion, measured as households’ access to bank accounts. Within three months of launching the PMJDY, the government entered the Guinness...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: After suspending the FCRA registration of Greenpeace India and putting foreign donor Ford Foundation on the watchlist, the government has now cancelled the LICences of 8,975 NGOs for failing to file annual returns for the years 2009-10, 2010-11 and 2011-12. In a cancellation order issued on Sunday, the Union home ministry recalled that it had issued notices to 10,343 NGOs on October 16, 2014, stating that...

-The Telegraph Bangalore: Six years ago, a 16-year-old Revanna M had missed a chance to travel to France for football training because, as an orphan, he didn't have the documents to obtain a passport. Memories of that heartbreak returned to haunt him last summer when he was chosen by an NGO as one of six underprivileged youths to visit Brazil during the football World Cup. Again, a passport seemed elusive for Revanna,...

-Hindustan Times Hamirpur/ Jalaun/ Banda: The dangerous sand mafia stops at nothing. It kills, runs over men in uniform, kidnaps and, in Uttar Pradesh, even molests and rapes. Its impunity stems from the fact, as an HT investigation found, that complaints lodged with poLICe often remain confined to files. Shivpal Singh, gram pradhan of Bansariya village, testifies to the mafia’s dominance. “In March 2014, the musclemen of a kingpin sexually assaulted two women...