-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court told the Centre on Thursday that it must file its response in four weeks to a PIL by NGO 'Common Cause' seeking permission for PRIvate FM radio stations and community radio services to broadcast news. Appearing for the petitioner, advocate Prashant Bhushan told a bench of Justice T S Thakur and Justice D Y Chandrachud that the government on one hand permitted PRIvate...

-The Hindu The Niti Aayog has called for a review of the provisions of the Right To Education Act that stipulate that children who don’t perform well cannot be held back up to class VIII. It said the good intention behind the norm is detrimental to the learning process. It has also suggested a system where direct benefit transfers offer the poor a choice between subsidised purchases or equivalent cash to buy...

-The Hindu The ‘batta’ system of rolling financing has shrunk as money cannot be withdrawn from banks, and bearer cheques pile up Varanasi: For the already distressed weavers and poorly paid labourers in the famous Banarasi sari industry, demonetisation has come as a crippling blow. Withdrawal limits of Rs. 50,000 on current accounts (around a 10th of the actual requirement in the trade) and falling business post November 8 have constrained traders from...

-The Indian Express Governments are making Aadhaar mandatory in contravention of court orders One reason for the controversy surrounding the Aadhaar project is the pending litigation against it in the Supreme Court. The cases draw on substantive critiques, including exclusion and dePRIvation caused by the usage of Aadhaar in provisioning essential services such as the PDS and MGNREGA, breaches of individual PRIvacy and threats to national and individual security in the way...

-The Hindu Business Line Bengaluru: Farmers in Karnataka, like their counterparts in other states who have been impacted by the drop in PRIces and cash shortage triggered by demonetisation, have another problem to contend with — crop loss on account of the failure of rains. It has been a kind of a triple whammy for farmers in the region. Besides being forced to reap a lower kharif output on account of a...