-The Hindu Hearings suspended in Maharashtra, Kerala, Rajasthan A quick survey of the fallout of the Supreme Court order directing that State Information Commissions “henceforth” work on benches of two members each — one of them a ‘judicial member’ and the other an ‘expert member’ — has shown that work in some SICs hearing appeals under the Right to Information (RTI) Act has ground to a halt. Other SICs found no barrier to...

-The Indian Express A group of teachers at Jamia Milia Islamia University has put together a compilation of terror cases that failed to hold up in court, all of these built by the Delhi Police Special Cell around youths they had arrested and described as terrorists. Titled “Framed, Damned and Acquitted: Dossiers of a Very Special Cell” and compiled from court judgments and media reports, the study by the Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity...

-CNN-IBN The Centre is considering a partial rollback of the cap on subsidised LPG. It is considering raising the limit on the number of subsidised LPG cylinders from six to ten cylinders per household per year, say sources. A section of the Congress and its allies - the Trinamool Congress, NCP and DMK have been demanding a rollback of the cap on LPG cylinders. Sources say Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Petroleum Minister...

-Economic and Political Weekly  The Government of India is considering a proposal to notify farming as an essential service. This is ostensibly to bring drought relief to farmers suffering from a weak monsoon - a laudable goal indeed. However, if farming is deemed an "essential service", farmers and farm workers could lose many of their political and civic rights because the government can then invoke the Essential Services Maintenance Act to...

-PTI The Punjab government today inked a Memorandum of Understanding with The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) to address issues pertaining to climate change, sustainable development, conservation and optimal use of water. The MoU was signed by Principal Secretary of science, technology, environment and non-conventional energy department, Karan Avtar Singh and Director General of TERI, Dr Rajendra K Pachauri, in the presence of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal. Appreciating the joint efforts taken...