-The Economic Times A panel set up by the Supreme Court to investigate Karnataka's illegal mining mess has made some important recommendations. It says 49 licences are patently illegal and should be scrapped.  Another 72 mining companies should be fined for operating outside sanctioned areas. It also asks for Karnataka's iron ore output to be capped at 30 million tonnes, down a third from its 45-million-tonne level till the court banned all...

The Supreme Court-appointed committee investigating illegal iron ore mining in Karnataka is tying up loose ends in Bellary district and will be submitting its final report early next month. The court's forest bench is to hear the case again on February 3.  The Central Empowered Committee (CEC), whose investigations prompted the Supreme Court to suspend mining in iron ore-rich areas of the state, affecting nearly a fourth of the country's production,...

A government-appointed panel has suggested launching online higher education courses, a step experts said would not only widen access to knowledge but also check irregularities in distance learning. Apart from permission to universities and deemed universities to offer courses through the Internet, the committee has recommended that the government set up a Distance Education Council of India (DECI) as regulator. Fourteen open universities and 172 other institutions now offer distance education to...

-PTI Asserting that Team Anna’s proposal to campaign against the Congress in the Assembly elections in five states raised questions of “propriety and ethics”, Chief Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi on Sunday said anything that came in the way of free and fair elections was not acceptable. “We don’t have any problem because in a democracy they have a right to oppose or support anybody. It should not be in violation of...

-The Indian Express   The Election Commission ponders the “novel challenge” posed by Anna Hazare and his team, which has vowed to campaign against the Congress in the five states that will hold elections in the near future. According to Chief Election Commissioner S.Y. Quraishi, this raises questions of “propriety and ethics”. The EC, he said, would watch carefully for any breach of the model code of conduct, for any hate speech...