-The Hindu Business Line The 2016 report had flagged the disastrous impact of unchecked illegal constructions; but it was never tabled in the Assembly Early warnings of a 2016 draft report of the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG) Kerala office about the disastrous implications of the environmental degradation due to unchecked and illegal construction activities in the State seem to have been buried, with the report inexplicably not getting tabled in the...

-TheNewsMinute.com Caught between denialism and short-sightedness, vulnerable communities in Sivakasi bear the brunt of clampdowns due to air pollution. At the strike of a gavel in Delhi, lights go out in Sivakasi. When states located thousands of kilometres away place curbs, sales turn out to be a damp squib in the fireworks capital. Year after year, about 6.5 lakh people in Sivakasi dependent on the fireworks industry suffer from rude market shocks because...

-Newsclick.in The book is a useful resource for patients, caregivers, activists and medical professionals in ensuring that patients’ rights are established and enforced as human rights. The right to health is not justiciable in India though the Supreme Court has interpreted it to be a part of Article 21 (protection of life and personal liberty).  The apex court’s judgements and the legal provisions in Drugs and Cosmetic Act, 1940, Consumer Protection Act 1986,...

-The Hindu ‘Private hospitals procure vaccines directly from manufacturers, so no data available’ The Health Ministry says it does not know how many COVID-19 vaccines were procured by private players, nor does it have separate data on how many vaccine doses were administered by private hospitals and service providers, according to its response to a Right to Information request filed by Commodore Lokesh Batra (Retd). Despite the fact that the government had reserved...

-IndiaToday.in The weather change in the region is being attributed to two major developments taking shape over the Bay of Bengal and in South Bangladesh. Kolkata broke the record for highest rainfall in 14 years as the city recorded over 200 mm of rainfall in the last two days. The previous such record was in 2007 when the city witnessed 174 mm rain. While airports, hospitals and roads are beginning to inundate,...