-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: CBI director Ranjit Sinha has said infrastructure building through the public-private partnership model could lead to a spike in corruption cases as the potentially lucrative contracts may encourage collusion between big firms and state officials. "This route is full of pitfalls and it has opportunities for corrupt activities with big scope for collusion among promoters of consortiums to whom such projects are awarded and corrupt public servants...

-Down to Earth Disabled youth on wheelchair severely thrashed in Kolkata; police arrest over 1,600 people for violating noise rules, unruly behaviour Pintu Biswas is the seventh person to die in West Bengal since 1997 for protesting against noisy firecrackers Last Saturday, the night of Kali Puja, was witness to the gruesome murder of a 40-year-old trader, Pintu Biswas, as he protested the bursting of noisy chocolate bombs outside his house. The incident...

-The Hindu     In Uttarakhand, women take the lead role in reviving and maintaining civil forests under Van Panchayats even in the face of several obstacles Munni Adhikari, a resident of Dhaura Gram Sabha in Lamgara block of Uttarakhand's Almora district, lives in an idyllic setting: green slopes covered with tall pine and oak trees, wild flowers in full bloom, neat little terrace farms... While this natural splendour can instantly captivate any...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: The government, in a bind over a recent Supreme Court order asking it to desist from linking social welfare schemes with its ambitious unique identity card Aadhaar, on Monday held out an assurance to the top court that no one would be deprived of any social welfare benefits for not holding Aadhaar. The government said while it had initiated the scheme to provide benefit transfers using Aadhaar...

-PTI Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has joined government and PSU oil firms against the Supreme Court order making Aadhaar card not mandatory for availing social benefits saying, its directive has "very serious implications" in the implementation of welfare schemes. The UIDAI also contended that its order dated September 23, putting the onus on it to check that Aadhaar card should not be given to illegal immigrants, impinges on the jurisdiction...