-Express India Acting on a public interest litigation (PIL) on August 14, the Gujarat High Court (HC) directed the state government to appoint two more information commissioners (IC) at the office of the state Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) to clear the piling-up secondary appeals and complaints under the Right to Information Act (RTI). This was not for the first time the HC ordered the state government to fill the vacant posts at...

-The Hindu Interim ban on tourism activities in reserves will continue Even as it extended its interim order banning tourist activities in the core areas of tiger reserves, the Supreme Court on Wednesday pulled up the Centre for inaction on protecting the tiger population. A Bench of Justices A.K. Patnaik and Swatanter Kumar extended the ban when Wasim A. Qadri, counsel for the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) under the Ministry of Environment...

-Mid Day Last month, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had filed 67 complaints at police stations across the state under various sections of the Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable advertisements) Act, 1955. These include complaints against advertisements of products such as 'Sandhi Sudha plus', 'Step up herbal oil' and 'Power Prash', which are promoted by leading Bollywood stars. The FDA had lodged complaints, demanding action against the drug manufacturers, scriptwriters and...

-The Hindustan Times Indira Gandhi National Open University, India’s largest distance learning varsity, allowed over a dozen private firms to offer its degrees and diplomas, violating rules and costing the public exchequer over Rs. 300 crores. The CBI is set to probe a series of MoUs signed by IGNOU under its former Vice Chancellor VN Rajasekharan Pillai with private firms that earned crores offering IGNOU degrees between 2006 and 2011, agency sources said.   Pillai,...

-Live Mint Despite a directive, and later a final warning from the Supreme Court, some states are yet to notify core areas that include tiger breeding grounds The Supreme Court will on Wednesday assess whether state governments have complied with its order to notify core and buffer areas of tiger reserves in line with the provisions of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, after banning organized tourism in breeding grounds of the big cats...