-Countercurrents.org   The events of last over two decades have shown us, more than before that the efforts of dividing the nation by communal forces have been a major obstacle to social peace and process of development. In India while the communal violence began with the Jabalpur riot of 1961, it is from last couple of decades especially from 1980s that the divisive politics has tried to drive a wedge between different...

-The Hindu   Investment in a scheme that guarantees rural employment with minimum wages should be seen as complementary and not alternative to development activities A recent paper by the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) has argued that the "push" factors of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) are not as important as the economic growth "pull" factors, for increasing agricultural wages. The paper has received wide media...

-The Hindu The National Commission for Women has extended its support to the ongoing campaign for allowing non-professional undergraduate women students in Aligarh Muslim University access to the Maulana Azad Library. The NCW has written to the Union Human Resource Development Ministry expressing its concern over "the gender Discrimination". Faculty members and students, who have been demanding an end to the "discriminatory" practice that does not allow students from Women's College access...

-The Hindu   A concern about the Food Security Bill is that legal entitlement has been weakened to mean a passive right to receive whatever the state gives The hallmark of the National Food Security Bill 2011 is that if implemented it will translate into India's first ever right to food legislation, guaranteeing food as a justiciable, legal entitlement to its people. However, in its current form, the Bill fails to evolve a...

-The Hindu The Supreme Court on Monday declined to stay a Gujarat High Court judgment upholding the constitutional validity of the Centre's scholarship scheme for minority students in the State. The High Court, in a majority decision in February, had rejected the Narendra Modi government's contention that the pre-matriculation scholarship scheme was discriminatory, and directed it to implement it. Justices P. Sathasivam and M.Y. Eqbal, while issuing notice on the government's appeal against...