-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Centre on Monday joined the long battle for improving the Capital's notoriously bad air quality by getting Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan to commit to a three-month action plan to curb pollution in the National Capital Region. All four states agreed to take time-bound steps to address the problem and come out with a joint medium and long term strategy in July. Under the plan,...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Supreme Court today directed all government and private hospitals to provide not only first-aid, but also follow-up treatment, free to acid-attack victims. The court said states and Union territories could take action under Section 357C of CrPC against private hospitals and clinics for refusal to treat such victims. This section says: "All hospitals, public or private, whether run by the central government, the state government, local bodies or...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: At a time when NGT-as well as Supreme Court-has been emphasizing the need for a robust public transport system to rein in the rising pollution as well as the number of private vehicles on city roads, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal feels running buses is not the government's job. Kejriwal, who was speaking at an event organized by Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) on Tuesday, said:...

-The Hindu The parliamentary stand off over the Indian government's effort to ease procedures to acquire land for "public purposes" continues, with the government deciding to re-promulgate the ordinance amending the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013. Besides concern about the impact that this would have on the farming community and those dependent on it, another cause for the controversy is the...

-PTI NEW DELHI: As India is set to defer its April 1 deadline for increasing size of pictoral warnings on tobacco products after pressure from various lobbies, head of a parliamentary panel on Monday said there was no Indian study to confirm that use of tobacco products leads to cancer. Dilip Gandhi, head of parliamentary panel on subordinate legislation examining the provisions of Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act, 2003 which had...