-The Hindustan Times Far from the neatly trimmed lawns of India Gate that so often reverberate with cries for justice, far also from the corridors of power where ministries recently squabbled over the right age for consensual sex, lie 197 districts - yes 197, read the figure again - where children are regularly abused. In these districts -- all ridden by conflict -- words like illegal detention, arbitrary arrests, sexual violence, torture...

-The Hindustan Times Government is set to fight Maoists with an all new weapon-development. From more residential schools to more mobile health units, the UPA is planning a slew of development activities in the red corridor along with its recent measures to beef up security offensive against the Maoists. After a recent meeting of the centre's Review Panel on Left Wing Extremism (LWE), cabinet secretary Ajit Seth directed the health ministry to...

-The Hindu     The shortened lifespan of the quarry workers of Uttar Pradesh is spent breaking stones and residing among the pollution- laden boulders Mired with sandy roads and rocky terrain, the landscape in south-western Allahabad creates a remarkable mirage under the blue sky. Some of the larger rocks here have sizeable craters formed in them -- a sign of their depletion over time, by an activity that is hazardous yet critical to the...

-The Hindu Raipur: For the first time since the formation of Chhattisgarh in 2000, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) will hold a "full commission" sitting in State capital Raipur. NHRC chairperson Justice K. G. Balakrishnan and its members, Justice B. C. Patel and retired diplomat Satyabrat Pal, will hold several sessions till Friday. According to sources in the NHRC, investigating officers and the special rapporteur of the commission had visited the State,...

-The Economic Times Six years after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh first urged India Inc to pro-actively offer employment to the less privileged sections of society, the government has not been able to walk the talk. A special recruitment drive initiated by it has failed to meet targets. Under the government's affirmative drive launched in 2008 and focused purely on offering jobs to candidates from Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes...