-The Hindustan Times The Jammu and Kashmir government’s fresh amendments have rendered the most successful institute of public transparency and accountability, state Right to Information Act, powerless, triggering sharp reactions from civil society and political parties.   Surprised state’s chief information commissioner G.R Sofi accused Chief Minister Omar Abdullah-LED government of making unnecessary changes to make state information commission (SIC) a “toothless body”.   “In first place, there was no reason to come up with...

-The Hindu A 2012 WHO study ranks India third — behind Myanmar and Bangladesh — among countries that fail to provide health cover to people. A 2011 study reported in The Lancet on ‘Healthcare and equity’ confirms this: every year, at least 39 million people here fall into poverty due to private out-of-pocket health expenditure. A vast majority of Indians do not have access to healthcare or essential drugs. By the...

-The Indian Express The Supreme Court has expressed its reluctance to review the poverty line fixed at Rs 32 per capita per day in the country, noting the figure may not be “fabulous” but it was not for them to settle economic policies. “We cannot review or alter it. We cannot settle economic policies for the country. In the light of your concerns, we can say it is not fabulous but it...

-The Economic Times Ram Kishen, 52, half-blind and half- starved, holds in his gnarLED hands the reason for his hunger: a tattered card entitling him to subsidised rations that now serves as a symbol of India's biggest food heist. Kishen has had nothing from the village shop for 15 months. Yet 20 minutes' drive from Satnapur, past bone-dry fields and tiny hamlets where children with distended bellies play, a government storage facility...

-The Hindu The Cabinet decision to seek total prohibition of child labour is a step long overdue The Cabinet Committee has passed the proposal seeking a total ban on employing children under 14 years and of 14-18 year olds in hazardous occupations. When passed in Parliament as law, it will be a huge milestone in the journey that many of us had started in the mid-1980s. This also marks a milestone in...