-The Telegraph   The Sonia-Gandhi headed National Advisory Council will prod the government to bring a law to protect unorganised retail sector workers as it brings foreign direct investment into multi-brand retail. Sonia, the council chairperson and the Congress chief, showed the green flag to the government on FDI in retail. The NAC in 2005 had drafted the unorganised sector workers’ social security bill that proposed a national authority to oversee the implementation of...

-The Business Standard   Vimla Devi is a committed anganwadi worker (AWW) in a remote village in Uttar Pradesh, the most populated state of India. Anganwadi is a village level institution under Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), one of the most talked about flagship programmes of the Indian Government. She is also the weakest link in a critical programme, which is underfunded, says Shantanu Gupta in the first of field-data reports, the...

The Planning Commission has received a sweeping set of recommendations that proposes free health care and medicines for diverse needs to all Indian citizens, irrespective of economic means. Whether or to what extent the proposals — described as “even bigger” than the UPA’s blockbuster job scheme — will be accepted will depend on the political and executive leadership. If the government throws its weight behind the initiative, it will effectively mean...

The state government is game for offering attractive pay package to doctors willing to hit road to villages. The government has rolled out a new scheme wherein doctors willing to serve in rural areas will get Rs 10,000 more. And for those performing and assisting in caesareanoperations, there will be Rs 2,700 over and above all that will come to them. Till now, doctors get Rs 40,000 monthly salary for...

The audience, organisers, and fightersknow that sham wrestling is not to betaken seriously. But the World Economic Forum takes itself seriously. The comforting thing about the sham wrestling ‘championships' on television is that everybody knows they are a farce. Steroid-stuffed Cro-Magnons stomp the living daylights out of painkiller-primed Neanderthals. Good, unclean fun. The results are safely predictable. You should expect the 600-pound gorilla to overwhelm the 900-pound one in a staggering...