-Outlook Sonepat: A Khap Mahapanchayat held here has appealed to the Centre and Haryana government to grant 'Khaps' the status of Lok Adalats as their decisions on various issues were "unanimous." The meeting, attended by about 70 Khaps, said yesterday that they were open to government representatives taking part in such meetings and voicing their opinions in the debates. They also demanded that marriage in the same gotra should be banned and suggested...

-The Indian Express Balimukh village, Morigaon: For 11-year-old Jesmina Begum, daughter of Abdul Motin of Atigaon, a village in the flood-ravaged Morigaon district in central Assam, commuting to school has become not only difficult but also dangerous in the recent weeks. “We know that five children drowned in a boat capsize on Tuesday. But what to do? We can’t stop going to school,” Jesmina said. The floods have washed away the road to...

-The Economist Growing inequality is one of the biggest social, economic and political challenges of our time. But it is not inevitable, says Zanny Minton Beddoes IN 1889, AT the height of America’s first Gilded Age, George Vanderbilt II, grandson of the original railway magnate, set out to build a country estate in the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina. He hired the most prominent architect of the time, toured the chateaux...

-The Times of India LUCKNOW: Despite denials of wrongdoing in a trust for disabled people that Union law minister Salman Khurshid and his wife operate, it now appears that there was a letter with the forged signature of a senior UP government official that allowed the Union ministry of social justice and empowerment to release the second tranche of funds in March 2011 — Rs 68 lakh — to the Zakir...

-The Hindu For the first 10 days after she was savagely assaulted and raped by eight men, 16-year-old Reshma (name changed) shuttered up her heart and mind, hoping silence would kill her memories of the violence, wrenching physical pain and the waves of shame, anger and fear. The men had threatened to circulate photographs of their crime if she complained, and sworn to kill her family. Now, everyone knows Reshma and her story...