-The Hindu The debate over the cartoons used in NCERT textbooks as aids to learning have thrown up a range of issues. The discussion has crystallised around a set of oppositions: motivated political correctness of our elected representatives vs. the necessity of preemptory parliamentary intervention on educational material appropriate for schools; institutional autonomy vs. political responsibility of a state presiding over a diverse and fraught society; the hubris of ‘experts’ vs....

-The Hindu Journalists need to adopt a set of integrity measures in order to police the boundaries between the market and political power   Gina Rinehart, Australia’s richest person and the world’s wealthiest woman, is seeking three board seats following her purchase of 18.7 per cent of Fairfax which owns most papers in Australia not controlled by Rupert Murdoch’s News Ltd. There has already been considerable upheaval in two of the Fairfax papers...

-The Telegraph Shillong: Two teams of National Disaster Response Force personnel were rushed to Meghalaya’s South Garo Hills district today to help rescue possible survivors among the 15 labourers trapped inside a coal mine since last week. The Guwahati-based personnel reached Nengkol in the Rongsa Awe area of Nangalbibra region — from where it is 10km to the coal mines — late this evening. Baghmara, the district headquarters, is around 480km from...

-The Times of India   India's GDP growth rate may have dropped in the past few years but that has had little impact on the bottomlines of the country's leading political parties. The coffers of the main parties have been swelling, with the richest amongst them, the ruling Congress, having made a cool Rs 1,662 crore in the last five years till 2011-12 and the BJP in second place with Rs 852...

-Down to Earth   Punjab has been in the grip of cancer for over a decade but the government has ignored the threat.  It all started with a knot in her left breast. Within no time it grew to the size of a tennis ball. In pain, 40-year-old Raj Rani went to the doctor in her village in Punjab’s Ferozepur district. Finding no relief, she started doing the rounds of government hospitals in...