-The Times of India   India's towns are worse than its villages when it comes to the child sex ratio (CSR), but its biggest cities are even worse. Against an overall ratio of 914 girls for 1,000 boys in the age group of 0-6 years, the urban ratio is 902 but the combined figure for cities with a population of a million or more is just 898. Look through the data for the...

The Union health ministry today banned the manufacture and sale of a drug called letrozole to treat infertility in women, four years after its own drug regulators had waived safety studies and relaxed rules to approve the medicine. In a statement notifying the ban, the ministry said the drug “is likely to involve risk to human beings and safer alternatives are available”. The drug has been used to treat breast cancer in...

The government's new guidelines for cybercafes will deepen the digital divide while doing nothing to curb terrorism. Following last month's tragic bomb blast at the Delhi High Court, in which over 13 people were killed, police traced an email from the ‘Harkat-ul-Jihad' claiming responsibility for the attack to a cybercafe in Kishtwar, Jammu and Kashmir, and arrested three people, including the owner. In fact, many recent terrorist attacks have been linked to...

-The Indian Express   The Supreme Court has said that it amounts to “fraud” on the part of the government to forcibly acquire land under the guise of a public purpose, only to have the property transferred to real estate developers or companies for their use.   A Bench of Justices G S Singhvi and S J Mukhopadhyaya held that the State cannot use its power to compulsorily purchase or acquire land of a...

Media Reports The UID Aadhaar project planning and system design shortcomings and security risks at the national (or macro) level have been discussed elsewhere.1 The present article views the Aadhaar project at the system operational level, with practical considerations based on observed and probable functioning at the service delivery end. Consider the following report in a local daily, The Mysore Bugle: Food riots: PDS outlet vandalised Mysore: August 2, 2015—The PDS outlet in Ashokpuram...