-The Indian Express The opposition’s main contention is that the GM mustard hybrid incorporates three alien genes — barnase, barstar and bar — rendering it inherently unsafe for human and animal health. Fifty years ago, Union Minister for Food and Agriculture Chidambaram Subramaniam took the decision to import 18,000 tonnes of seeds of Lerma Rojo 64A and Sonora 64 wheat from Mexico. The seeds arrived just in time for their planting in...

-The Hindu The overcrowding of prisons in the country is a long-standing problem that is seldom addressed effectively. Even though the Supreme Court has, from time to time, raised the issue of prison reforms in general, and that of overcrowding in particular, measures to decongest jails have been sporadic and half-hearted. The issue is once again in the news, with the Supreme Court bemoaning that prisons in Delhi and nine States...

-FirstPost.com With changes in power structure comes changes in policies. The human resource development ministry which witnessed a major change a couple of months back with the installation of Prakash Javadekar as the head and removal of Smriti Irani has taken up the task of changing rules and policies. The National Council of Educational Research and TRAIning (NCERT) has advised the central government against scrapping the “no detention” policy, reported The Economic...

-PTI NEW DELHI: All central government departments were today asked to put copies of RTI applications received and their responses on their websites except applicants' personal details "as they do not serve any public interest". As per norms, all public authorities shall proactively disclose RTI applications and appeals received and their responses, on the websites maintained by them with search facility based on key words. "It is clarified that while proactively disclosing RTI...

-The Hindu The State has taken the lead in providing some essential and basic health-care TRAIning to these informal providers. In West Bengal, nearly 3,000 quacks — informal health-care providers with no formal medical education — are to be TRAIned for six months. The crash course in medicine, and to be conducted by 130 TRAIned nurses, is to begin from December 1. The objective is to provide these informal providers with a minimum...