-IndianSpend.com Recent changes to environment clearance rules allow polluting industries to expand their operations and change their product mix without full central scrutiny. This may weaken the already poor compliance with environmental regulations and could even lead to industrial accidents like the 2020 Visakhapatnam gas leak, experts say. New Delhi: Recent changes in the environment clearance process for India's most polluting industries will allow them to expand their capacity and change their...

-The Hindu FCRA approvals take a lot of time, the government needs to urgently grant an exemption for all such donations, tax and legal experts said. Indian entities, including hospitals and charitable trusts, hoping to receive COVID-19 relief material from overseas individual donors or donor agencies, could be in trouble, unless they are registered under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) with a stated objective involving provision of medical care. On May 3,...

-The Hindu Over the last few decades, intellectual property rules have served as a lethal barrier to the right to access healthcare Even an unprecedented pandemic can do little, it appears, to upset the existing global regime governing monopoly rights over the production and distribution of life-saving drugs. If anything, since the onset of COVID-19, we’ve only seen a reaffirmation of intellectual property rules that have served as a lethal barrier to...

-Livemint.com * In a day, 5,616 patients were cured of the disease in the state, and the recovery rate stands at 89.23% * West Bengal now has 63,496 active cases West Bengal registered its highest single-day spike of 10,784 fresh Covid-19 cases, which took the tally in the state to 6,88,956, the health department said today. The death toll also rose to 10,710 after 58 fresh fatalities were reported. In a day, 5,616 patients were...

-Press release by Common Cause dated 19th April, 2021 New Delhi: There are silences and gaps in the law that the questionable elements in the police take advantage of and undermine the Rule of law, said Justice Madan B Lokur, former Justice of the Supreme Court of India. Delivering the Keynote Address on ‘Is the Rule of law Backsliding in India?’ at the launch of the Status of Policing in India Report...