-The Economic Times The Union Cabinet is expected to take up for approval a bill that deals with manual scavenging and rehabilitation of scavengers.  For nearly two years now, the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council has been advocating for a new law to deal with the indignities of manual scavenging and for their rehabilitation. Gandhi had, in November 2010, written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asking the government to take steps to...

The ASCI report says there is ample evidence of “market dominance” in specific media markets, but the government has ignored the report for three years. A ministry official tells PARANJOY GUHA THAKURTA that it is unlikely to be implemented. A report prepared by an independent institution recommending imposition of cross-media ownership restrictions recently entered the public domain nearly three years after it was submitted,  following a rebuke to the government by...

RANWAN, India — In this north Indian village, workers recently dismantled stacks of burned and mildewed rice while flies swarmed nearby over spoiled wheat. Local residents said the rice crop had been sitting along the side of a highway for several years and was now being sent to a distillery to be turned into liquor. Just 180 miles to the south, in a slum on the outskirts of New Delhi, Leela...

-The Hindu “Iwill open my mouth,” Major Avtar Singh had told the journalist, Hartosh Singh Bal, last year. “I will not keep quiet.'' This weekend, Singh, facing extradition proceedings for his alleged role in the brutal 1996 murder of Kashmiri human rights activist and lawyer Jalil Andrabi, shot himself, his wife, and their two young children, at their home in Selma, California. In weeks to come, theories about what led Singh...

-Daily Bhaskar Bhopal: A dozen men from Kushwaha community chopped off the tongue of a dalit youth just because they didn't like the 'temerity' of a Jatav vrooming on bike fast in front of them. The gory crime occurred in Jaitpur Square under Narwar police station of Shivpuri on Monday. Prakash Jatat ( 31) was admitted to a government hospital where his condition is stable. Eyewitnesses say Jatav was on bike...