-The Telegraph New Delhi: The price caps imposed by the Indian government on 348 drugs earlier this year have created only an illusion of control, keeping many medicines for conditions ranging from asthma to diabetes and heart disease beyond price regulations, experts said today. The price control order issued by the department of pharmaceuticals in May has led to a 22 per cent reduction in the average cost of some 250 medicines,...

-The Hindu The Gujarat snooping incident should be used as an opportunity to ask how the government has assumed the power to order such invasive, unchecked surveillance. On November 15, a pair of investigative portals released a set of audio transcripts depicting an extraordinarily invasive and scrupulous surveillance of a young woman by the Gujarat Police. Its implications, limited as they may appear to those who consider privacy a besmirched value, in...

-The Hindu There has been "a phenomenal increase" in the levels of fine particles in the atmosphere over India, especially those generated by human activity, according to research published recently by a team of Indian scientists. Such particles, known as aerosols, contribute to the growing levels of pollution in the country. In addition, these particles scatter and absorb light. As their levels in the atmosphere increase, they can cut the amount sunlight that...

-The Business Standard The issue is likely to figure in its assessment of the 12th Five-Year Plan As it sets about preparing the groundwork for the mid-term appraisal (MTA) of the 12th five-year Plan, the Planning Commission is worried over the impact of slow growth in the first two years of the Plan (2012-13 and 2013-14) on employment and livelihoods. A Planning Commission official said returning to the high-growth trajectory at the...

-The Business Standard The structural changes in India's rural workforce Seldom in the past has the country's labour market gone through structural changes faster than it has in recent years. Apart from a sharp decline in the proportion of workers employed in agriculture, the perceptible withdrawal of women from the workforce is the most striking feature of India's labour market. Going by the numbers the census and the National Sample Survey Office...