-The Hindu Identifying 37 per cent - or about 60,000 square km - of the Western Ghats as ecologically sensitive, a high-level panel has recommended that "destructive" activities such as mining, thermal power, major construction, and some hydel power projects should not be allowed there. However, the panel was silent about any restrictions in the remaining 96,000 square km area, thus creating the perception that it had diluted earlier recommendations that the...

-The Wall Street Journal Blog The world's poorest people are now concentrated most heavily in Sub-Saharan Africa after China's huge leap in pulling its citizens out of extreme poverty in recent decades, according to new estimates released Wednesday by the World Bank. About 1.2 billion people in the world lived in extreme poverty in 2010, subsisting on less than $1.25 a day. That's down from 1.9 billion three decades ago despite a...

-PTI JOHANNESBURG: States may not prevent access to websites because they display opinions or beliefs that are critical of governments or established systems of thought, UN Human Rights Commissioner Navanethem "Navi" Pillay said here. Pillay, a South African of Indian Tamil origin, was delivering a lecture on 'Human Rights Achievements and Challenges in a Rapidly Changing World' at the University of the Witwatersrand as part of South Africa's celebration of Human Rights...

-The Hindu United Kingdom: Britain's Dalit immigrants on Wednesday suffered a setback in their long-standing campaign for an anti-caste legislation when the House of Commons rejected a motion to amend the Equality Act to Ban discrimination on the basis of caste. Had the proposal gone through, it would have provided for discrimination on the basis of caste to be treated on par with racial discrimination. It was defeated by motion 307 to...

-The Hindu Extracts show violence before and during funeral processions of kar sevaks In its closure report submitted to the trial court, the Special Investigation Team that probed Zakia Jafri's complaintagainst Narendra Modi and 58 others said there was no evidence to prove that the Chief Minister had sent the bodies of the 2002 Godhra victims to Ahmedabad with a view to parading them before the public. The SIT quoted Ahmedabad Police Commissioner...