The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has asked the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) to ask the Sports and Youth Affairs Ministry to raise the controversial matter of Dow Chemical Sponsorship for the London Olympics 2012 with the International Olympic Committee (IOC). This should be done through the National Olympic Committee in view of the strong public opinion within India. The Sponsorship issued has led to outrage among the Bhopal tragedy victims...

Indian athletes are threatening to boycott next summer's London Olympics in an extraordinary stand-off with the head of the 2012 Games, Lord Coe, over his controversial Sponsorship deal with a chemical company. Lord Coe is under personal attack for signing the deal with Dow Chemical – under fire in India for its ownership of Union Carbide, whose Indian subsidiary was responsible for the Bhopal industrial disaster, one of the world's worst,...

-The Economic and Political Weekly   Media freedom is not restricted by one law but by collusion between economic and political power and big media. The defamation case filed in a Pune court by former Press Council chairman justice P B Sawant has drawn attention to the criminal law of defamation and whether it restricts the freedom of the press. Justice Sawant was awarded Rs 100 crore in exemplary damages in the case...

The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered private hospitals functioning on public land to make good their promise to treat the poor for free. This decision is intended to change the belief that “health care is given only to those who can afford it”. The bench of Justices R V Raveendran and A K Patnaik passed a short order after a detailed hearing in which lawyers representing several private hospitals tried to...

-The Telegraph   Private hospitals in Delhi that received land at a concession from the government must honour their undertaking to treat poor patients free of charge, the Supreme Court today said in a verdict that can have an impact in other states too. The court allowed the hospitals to recoup the cost from private donors and Sponsors or “by any other means”, which should include cross-subsidisation by raising rates for other patients. The...