-The Economic Times India may have policy of preferring free and open source applications, but still the world's largest software maker Microsoft and others, including Adobe, Norton and McAfee, have managed to weasel their way into some of the largest government purchases in the country's history. Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan are in the process of procuring over eight million laptops preloaded with proprietary software in clear violation of India's national...

-Outlook Lucknow: World Bank Group President Jim Young Kim today said the mission of the multilateral institution was to end poverty, and there is no way in achieving this objective for the country without ending it in Uttar Pradesh. "We have called on two fundamental ideas one is end to poverty... In this generation, we think that we can end the poverty," Kim said in a joint press conference with Chief Minister...

-Pragoti The magnificent victory of the CPI(M)-led Left Front in Tripura - winning 50 out of the 60 seats – and the success of the LF candidate in the Nalhati by-election in West Bengal has been interpreted as a “re-emergence” of the Left parties by a senior CPI(M) leader. This does not seem to be a rigorous assessment. While the fifth consecutive win by the LF in Tripura is a matter of...

-PTI MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court has restrained the Maharashtra Government from allowing excavation of sand in drought-hit villages, saying it would cause shortage of potable water for people and animals. The Court was hearing a petition filed by Rajendra Eknath Dhande, who sought a direction to the authorities to disallow sand excavation in drought-hit Khatgaon village of Karmala taluka in Solapur district. Chief Justice Mohit Shah and Justice Anoop Mohta were of...

-The Indian Express In the first detailed manual for medical examination of rape victims, the Health Ministry has advised doctors not to use the word rape as it is "not a medical diagnosis but a legal definition". It has also asked them not to identify a victim as "habituated to sexual intercourse" as this amounts to unlawful interference in her privacy and therefore a violation of her human rights. "Rape is not...