-The Hindu Draft Bill to be discussed on Tuesday After legislating the Right to Information and Education — and making a stab at the Right to Work and Food through the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and the Food Security Act respectively — the government’s next step seems to be aimed at legally upholding the right to a home of your own. On Tuesday, a task force set up by the...

-The Economic Times The country's chief auditor has uncovered a Rs 1,336-crore negative balance in the books of the Empoyees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), the custodian of Rs 8.15 crore formal sector workers' lifetime savings. A report, prepared by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) and reviewed by ET, says this discrepancy in the EPFO's books for 2011-12 could grow further. For beneficiaries, this could mean lower returns on provident fund savings...

-The Business Standard Relative price changes across food items may impinge on long-term food security Rising food prices have been a significant driver of inflation in India over the past few years. In early 2008, there was a global surge in food prices, which certainly had an impact on the domestic situation. But, this subsided in a few months. Since then, the pressures seem to have been predominantly internal. If these trends...

-The Business Standard State budgets are raining sops to pull farmers' votes With elections staring at them, several state governments are suddenly waking up to the demands of farmers and offering sops to the agriculture sector in their budgets, even as farmer organisations say the state and Central governments should do more.    Karnataka, which pioneered the trend of having a separate agriculture budget--similar to the railway budget at the Centre — brought...

-The Hindustan Times West Bengal's Dum Dum Central Jail could put the notorious Abu Ghraib in a shade going by some of the disturbing incidents which have taken place there recently. A mere request for better food earned Bikram Mahato, undergoing trial for murder, a severe beating after which he was handcuffed and kept naked in a cell. And this is not an isolated incident in this jail. When Mahato had...