-The Hindu The pressing need to end the misuse of Section 66 A of the Information Technology Act has once again been underscored by the arrest of Jaya Vindhyala, president of the People's Union for Civil Liberties in Andhra Pradesh. Her alleged offence of putting up posts critical of a legislator, Amanchi Krishna Mohan, and Tamil Nadu Governor K. Rosaiah on Facebook has resulted in heavy-handed police action. Clearly, the Supreme...

-The Hindu Business Line     The Comptroller and Auditor General's suggestion that the CBI be given constitutional status similar to that of his own office is not without merit. Every now and then, the issue of freeing the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) from the Government's clutches takes on a fresh urgency. The latter's response has been to wait till the fuss died down and eventually do nothing. There are no special reasons...

-The Indian Express SC has usefully separated valid safety concerns from generalised fears of nuclear power In clear and ringing terms, the Supreme Court has backed the operationalising of the Kudankulam nuclear power plant. Nuclear energy is necessary for the larger public interest, for "present and future generations", it stressed, while ordering the government to comply with all safety measures. The court had been hearing a string of petitions that said the...

-The Hindu Chennai: A team led by an IIT-Madras professor has devised a cheap and effective method to produce clean drinking water. It will soon be possible to produce 10 litres of water - free of bacteria and virus - at just Rs. 10-12 per month, for the daily consumption of a family of five. Prof. T. Pradeep of the department of chemistry at IIT-M and his team have made use of silver...

-The Hindu Vinod Jain lives in a sprawling landscaped farmhouse on the outskirts of the city, an area that is an exclusive address; not far from this posh neighbourhood lives Amin Mohammad in a shanty amid rubble and refuse on land illegally occupied. And the only thing common between the two households otherwise at the two ends of an economic spectrum is that with no source of municipal water in their neighbourhoods...