-The Hindu Nationwide survey will be conducted to introduce a suitable shelter programme The government proposes to create an enabling environment for the social empowerment of the de-notified tribes so that they could utilise Reservation benefits in education and employment. A nation-wide survey of de-notified tribes’ settlements is to be conducted to form the basis for introducing a suitable shelter programme for them. They could be entitled to free or subsidised housing under...

-The Hindu To address the rights issue and the skewed sex ratio, girl child-friendly policies get an extra thrust in the 12 Plan document, to be approved formally by this month-end The 12 Plan document of the Planning Commission, to be formally approved this month-end, has recommended setting up of a high level inter-ministerial committee on ‘Care and Protection of the Girl Child’ which will constitute the institutional mechanism for mobilising and...

—AP Envoys from nearly 90 nations signed on Friday the first new U.N. telecommunications treaty since the Internet age, but the U.S. and other Western nations refused to join after claiming it endorses greater government control over cyberspace. The head of the U.N. telecoms group pushed back against U.S. assertions, defending the accord as necessary to help expand online services to poorer nations and add more voices to shape the direction of...

-The Times of India PUNE: Less than a fortnight ago, the state education department had stirred up a hornet's nest when it announced that kindergartens would now come under the purview of Right to Education Act, putting a spanner in their ongoing admission process. Much confusion prevailed followed by a flurry of clarifications from the government asking them to go ahead with their admission process as long as they kept 25...

-Frontline Maharashtra’s sugarcane farmers are a worried lot as the State government backs out from the sugar pricing process.  Sangli & Kolhapur: KOLHAPUR and Sangli districts in Maharashtra form the heartland of Indian sugar industry. This time of year is generally the busiest, with itinerant labourers cutting sugarcane and loading it on to tractors that roar off to the more than 20 sugar factories in the two districts. In November and December,...