-The Indian Express The Labour Ministry’s four-year-old report acknowledged that for women, decent maternity leave alone “results in mounting a very huge pressure of family, childcare responsibilities as well as demands of workplace”. The Labour Ministry, on the recommendation of the Ministry of Women and Child Development, will amend the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961, to increase maternity leave in the private sector from 12 weeks to 26. This is being done...

-The Hindu Employees from the community say they have poor representation in officer ranks The Supreme Court on Friday asked the Centre and public sector banking authorities to consider providing reservation to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Employees in promotion to officers’ ranks at all levels. “The grievance of the Employees belonging to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes category is that there is negligible representation of Employees belonging to their community in...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The "Mercedes" class left squirming by Delhi's odd-even car rationing today received sympathy from the Supreme Court, which suggested that Metro trains earmark premium seats where the affluent can sit "dignified" at a price. "Mr Kumar, car owners who are coming (to the Delhi Metro), they must get some space to sit," Chief Justice T.S. Thakur told solicitor-general Ranjit Kumar, appearing for the Centre in a case filed...

-Business Standard The government is holding talks with states providing cashless health insurance, such as Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat After providing life cover and accident cover, the government is now working on a universal health insurance plan. To begin with, it will provide a seamless solution to the existing cashless health schemes in states by integrating those with the Centre's direct benefits transfer (DBT) platform. Later, these would be scaled up. "Encouraged...

-Frontline The Janlokpal Bill passed by the Delhi Assembly on December 3 fails to meet the goals of the 2011 anti-corruption movement and is a pale shadow of the 2014 Bill. IT took the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government, which came to power in Delhi with a massive mandate in the Assembly elections held in February, 10 months to seek to fulfil one of its key election promises: the passage of...