-The Times of India   Domestic helps would find it easier to complain against sexual harassment if the recommendations of a parliamentary panel favouring their inclusion in the proposed 'protection of women against sexual harassment in workplace' bill are accepted. Dismissing the government's view that there were "practical difficulties" in implementing the law within the confines of a home, the committee on Thursday said such excuses could not be used as a...

U.P.'s GDP grew at 7.28 per cent in the past five years, but the State ranks low in virtually every area of socio-economic development. IF statistics on gross domestic product (GDP) are the only criteria to evaluate the performance of a government, the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) government in Uttar Pradesh will have to be rated as one with highly impressive credentials. For, India's most populous State has recorded a...

-The Telegraph   RBI governor D. Subbarao has expressed concern over Bengal’s low credit-deposit ratio, which means that funds from the cash-starved state are actually meeting the borrowing needs elsewhere. The erstwhile Left government used to blame banks for the skewed ratio. But bankers have blamed it on the poor credit absorption capacity of rural Bengal because of fragmented land holdings — a fallout of the land reforms. After a meeting with chief minister...

A Lakhisarai-bases RTI activist, who had filed dozens of RTI applications on hoarding, black marketing, appointment of panchayat teachers and aanganwadi workers and status of development schemes in villages, was shot dead on Thursday morning at his native village, barely five km from the district town. The RTI activist, Ramvilas Singh (56), also Amhara panchayat samiti member, is suspected to have been killed because of political rivalry with a person whose...

-PTI   India has become "less equal over time" and earningsinequality in the country has increased significantly since the early 1990s, Paris-based think tank OECD said today. The observations are a part of OECD's report focusing on inequality patterns and related policy challenges in the emerging economies of India, China, Argentina, Brazil, Indonesia, Russia and South Africa The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is a 34-member grouping of mostly advanced nations, that...