-The Hindu The Gujarat snooping incident should be used as an opportunity to ask how the government has assumed the power to order such invasive, unchecked surveillance. On November 15, a pair of investigative portals released a set of audio transcripts depicting an extraordinarily invasive and scrupulous surveillance of a young woman by the Gujarat Police. Its implications, limited as they may appear to those who consider privacy a besmirched value, in...

-The Times of India WARSAW: Though the ongoing climate talks has failed to bring cheer to developing countries as rich nations have, so far, not made any commitment to set aside a corpus to battle global warming, hope springs eternal for the negotiators. They are expecting that the high-level ministerial round may throw up a pleasant surprise, where developed countries would finally pledge a sum -$20-$30 billion annually - for assisting poor...

-The Hindustan Times New Delhi: We had not yet recovered from the horror played out in Member of Parliament Dhananjay Singh's home in New Delhi's VIP enclave when another horrific case of maid abuse tumbled out from a middle-class neighbourhood in east Delhi last week. A 55-year-old Non-Resident Indian, in town to take care of her ailing mother, allegedly tortured her maid by branding her with hot kitchen tongs. A minor...

-The Hindu     While it is apparent that due process has been subverted to the advantage of a few by the political Executive, it is equally true that there has been some politicisation of the civil service Two recent events have focussed attention on the relationship between the political Executive and public servants. At the international conference on corruption organised by the Central Bureau of Investigation on November 11, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh...

-The United Nations Food systems will need to change significantly to tackle severe nutrition problems that currently afflict more than half of the world's population, experts told a United Nations meeting in Rome today. "It is clear that the ways in which food is managed today are failing to result in sufficient improvements in nutrition. The most shocking fact is that over 840 million people still suffer from hunger today, despite the...