-PTI The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the Centre on a PIL seeking to make intelligence agencies IB, RAW and NTRO accountable to Parliament. A bench headed by Chief Justice Altamas Kabir sought response from the Centre and the three intelligence wings for bringing the agencies under the oversight of Parliament and CAG. The bench also asked Attorney General G E Vahanvati to assist it in deciding the PIL filed by...

-Outlook This could be the UPA’s worst cut to its beloved aam admi. Healthcare has virtually been handed over to privateers. Not For Those Who Need It Most Govt seems to have abandoned healthcare to the private sector Diagnosing An Ailing Republic     70 per cent of India still lives in the villages, where only two per cent of qualified allopathic doctors are available     Due to lack of access to medical care, rural India...

-The Economic Times Brands may be spending million to promote an eco-friendly-image, but when it comes to actual sales, organic and 'planet-friendly' products have failed to move cash registers for retailers, whether it's fresh produce, groceries or even clothing. Top food retailers like Future Group, Reliance Retail and Spencer's Retail say sales from organic vegetables, fruit and food products account for less than 2 per cent of total food sales, even three...

-Manorama Online In the great Japanese director Akira Kurosawa's film Rashomon, four characters have differing recollections of the same event. Did the samurai stab himself with his wife's dagger? Which of them, if any, is telling the truth? I felt like this after the session at last month's Jaipur Literature Festival during which Ashis Nandy said, among other odd things, “It is a fact that most of the corrupt come from the...

-The Hindustan Times As India debates ‘capital punishment’ for rapists, millions of men maintain that ‘corporal punishment’ is the right sentence for a wife who serves chai gone cold. Since it is often invisible, violence committed by husbands has escaped public outrage. Crimes such as beating, punching and forced sex usually go unpunished because it is common belief that a husband has the right to punish his wife.   Though we do...