-The Hindu Chautala echoes Haryana khap panchayat demand; rape not a black-and-white law and order issue, says Renuka Chowdhury Even as the former Haryana Chief Minister, Om Prakash Chautala, backed demands for new laws that will allow marriage of teenagers saying it would help end the surge in sexual crimes reported from across the State in recent weeks, a senior Congress leader has said that the State’s rape crisis was not a...

-Mainstream Weekly Intense and motivated propaganda, powerful national and international diplomatic pressure, verging on pure and simple arms-twisting of the kind the Third World has been facing for decades by means of the active role of the econo-mic hit-men in the policy establishments, huge cash-back lobbying, both in India and abroad, blunt attempts to bamboozle the persons holding key positions in India’s policy establishment through a combination of hissing and kissing...

-The Indian Express Bhubaneswar : Aiming to reach the poorest of poor, the Naveen Patnaik government on Tuesday started Palli Sabhas and Gram Sabhas in 48,000 villages under 6,236 gram panchayats through which several developmental projects and schemes such as NREGS, Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan and old age pension would be executed. The programme termed “Gram Sabha Shashaktikaran Karyakrama” would continue till October 18 and give the grampanchayats a say in selecting the...

-The Hindu While the Internet growth story in India seems promising, individual users are yet to play their rightful role. Individual consumption is placed at 29 per cent — much lower than the international figure of 45 per cent, which means the Internet economy in India continues to be driven by large companies. By 2015, the Internet sector is projected to become bigger than the education sector, and equal to the...

-The Times of India SRINAGAR: With the second killing of a sarpanch in a fortnight on Sunday by terrorists, the print media in the Valley, and particularly Urdu newspapers, published scores of advertisements from rattled panchayat chiefs on Tuesday announcing their resignations, in response to militants threats to quit or face the consequences. There were more than 50 such advertisements in Urdu newspapers with panchayat chiefs displaying their resignations. However, deputy commissioner...