-The Hindu On Monday, the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, completes three years of its existence - the time frame within which authorities were to ensure that its provisions were fully implemented - to make basic education a legal entitlement to all children aged 6-14. However, official statistics and reports from the field paint a far-from satisfactory picture, with citizens moving court against the competent authority...

-The Times of India The amended anti-rape law does not include prostitution as a form of exploitation unlike the ordinance that criminalized sex work. The Criminal Law Amendment Bill, 2013 makes a distinction between sexual exploitation and consensual adult sex work. The move was welcomed by sex workers and activists who had slammed the ordinance that defined prostitution as exploitation. The ordinance cleared by the Cabinet on the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill,...

-The Hindu   SHO suspended for "negligence" on the basis of complainants' statements Patna: The family of whistle-blower Ram Thakur, an advocate who was shot dead in Bihar's Muzaffarpur district on Saturday, has alleged that the police was complicit in his murder. Based on the statements of the complainants, Shafir Alam, Station House Officer (SHO) of the Manihari police station, has been suspended for "negligence." The police have registered an FIR against six persons...

-DNA Sex workers and women's rights activists have welcomed the government's move to differentiate ‘prostitution' from exploitation in the amended Section 370 of the Indian Penal Code. By inserting a new definition of exploitation, the Criminal Law Amendment Bill 2013 passed by Lok Sabha clarifies a position that till date conflated consensual adult sex work and sex Trafficking: ‘Expression "exploitation" shall include any act of physical exploitation or any form of sexual...

-Live Mint Research conducted in 10 European cities; results comparable to the burden associated with passive smoking Exposure to vehicular pollution near busy roads is responsible for 14% of chronic childhood asthma cases, according to a new research conducted in 10 European cities. The results are comparable to the burden associated with passive smoking which, the World Health Organization estimates, causes between 4% and 18% of asthma cases in children. The study was...