-PTI NEW DELHI: After the "successful long march" of farmers in Maharashtra, the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) is now planning to hold a similar rally in the national capital to demand a special session of Parliament to discuss agrarian crisis. In a meeting of the central office-bearers of the AIKS in Delhi today, the farmers' organisation said such a move was necessary to make the government aware of the plights of...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The ministry of women and child development has sought relaxation in provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) to allow bail to undertrial women inmates in jails, who have spent one-third of their maximum possible sentence in detention. The changes have been proposed to Section 436A of CrPC, which provides for release of an inmate on bail after half of the maximum sentence has been...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Linkage of MGNREGS accounts with an Aadhaar-linked payment (ALP) system significantly boosted efficiency of wage transfers, doubling funds transferred and increasing work allotted in times of distress as compared to previous years when demand actually dropped during economic stress due to leakage and delays in payments. An Indian School of Business study that examined annual data for blocks which had drought conditions in financial years 2012-2017...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Vitamin-D deficiency is leading to increasing incidence of obesity and diabetes among Indian women, according to a study in British Medical Journal (BMJ). Findings of the cross-sectional population-based study shows that 68.6% women in India are vitamin-D ‘deficient’, whereas almost 26% have been marked ‘insufficient’. Only 5.5% of women in the country have the vitamin in sufficient amount. The study has been conducted by researchers from...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: A year ago, when the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act came into force, it was considered a landmark reform that positioned India among the top progressive nations, enabling women to stay in the workforce after childbirth. The well-intentioned amendment entitles working women to a 26-week paid leave, up from the earlier 12 weeks, something that progressive companies were already offering. With India’s women workforce participation rate dwindling from...