-The Hindu India must exploit the potential of this technology to help farmers meet irrigation needs In the past few years, solar pumps have consistently piqued the interest of various bureaucrats and politicians. The Prime Minister spoke about solar pumps from the ramparts of the Red Fort in 2016. There is no shortage of ideas which the Centre, States, civil society organisations, and enterprises are adopting to enhance penetration of solar for...

-The Hindu ‘State exploiting personal rights of individuals’ New Delhi: The Aadhaar scheme contradicts the role of the state as the custodian of the citizens’ fundamental right of privacy. A duty is cast on the Government and its agencies to protect the citizen’s crucial personal data from commercial exploitation by private corporates, petitioners challenging the scheme submitted in the Supreme Court on Thursday. Referring to the nine-judge Bench judgment which upheld privacy as...

-The Hindu Raises questions about violation of SC orders and insurance regulator’s norms Chennai: Despite the Government extending the deadline for linking Aadhaar to various services to March 31, 2018, many insurance companies are insisting that customers part with their Aadhaar details for accessing their services. Principal among such insurers is the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), whose newly designed web portal requires mandatory registration of policy holders’ Aadhaar details to even...

-PTI New Delhi: Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Thursday remained non-committal on cutting excise duty on petrol and diesel, which have touched record highs, saying merely that the Government is keeping a close watch on the situation. Petrol price rose to ?71.56 per litre in Delhi on Thursday, the highest since August 2014. Rates in Mumbai are almost touching ?80. Diesel prices soared to their highest level of ?62.25 per litre in Delhi....

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Union health ministry has asked its senior-most medical officer who oversees the implementation of the Government's myriad health and family welfare programmes to go on leave and asked the second-in-command to take his position. In an order issued on Tuesday, the ministry asked Jagdish Prasad, the director-general of health services (DGHS), to "proceed on earned leave for 15 days... today afternoon" and assigned his charge to B.D....