Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan said here on Friday that people's movements in Kerala and other States had forced the Centre to change its stand at the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. Reports and photographs taken to the Convention from Kerala had also helped in arriving at the decision. “It was not just a campaign against the Centre but also one to create awareness of the dangers of the pesticide,” the...

The activism of civil society against corruption has caught the imagination of many Indians. Arguments put forward by representatives of the civil society organisations (CSOs) can be summarised as follows: 'All - at least most - politicians, ministers, bureaucrats are corrupt. Voters are incapable of deciding what is good for them. The police, Central Bureau of Investigation and the Central Forensic Science Laboratory, and all other agencies of the State...

A UN panel has said killing of tens of thousands of people in the final stages of the Sri Lankan civil strife could amount to "war crimes", but Secretary General Ban Ki-moon insisted he would only launch an international investigation if Colombo agrees or member states call for it. A UN statement publicly releasing a report by a world body panel said that Secretary General has been advised that he needs...

The government on Monday proposed a roadmap for time-bound redressal of grievances under the landmark Right to Education Act. The move comes three weeks after the country's apex watchdog for the law raised concerns about the absence of such a mechanism. The human resource development ministry on Monday discussed with states the proposal to set up a detailed grievance redressal mechanism for the law, with specific authorities and timeframe to...

Sharad Pawar says many states had asked him not to ban the pesticide Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar is rooting for endosulfan just before the fifth Conference of Parties (COP) of the Stockholm Convention meets in Geneva from April 25 to April 30 to decide the fate of the pesticide. There seems to be a pattern in Pawar’s resistance to banning endosulfan. Replying to a question in the Lok Sabha on February...