-The Times of India BOLPUR/NEW DELHI: The Prime Minister's office on Monday took serious note of an incident where a Class-V student of Visva-Bharati's Patha Bhavan school was forced to lick her urine as punishment for bedwetting. The PM is the university's chancellor and his office has asked for a report. The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights too has slapped a notice on the state government asking for a...

-The Telegraph Ranchi, July 6: Nagri villagers leading a violent agitation against proposed campuses of three national institutes of learning do not want political leaders to hijack their movement to get back the 218 acres acquired by the government in the ’50s. “Leaders like Dayamami Barla, Bandhu Tirkey, Stan Swami etc have misled us by saying they would find a legal and political solution to the problem. But the result is that...

-The Indian Express An intriguing paradox of contemporary Indian politics has been insufficiently noted: corporate India finances India’s elections, substantially if not wholly, but it is unable to determine election outcomes. Money matters, but it is not always electorally decisive. The recent Uttar Pradesh elections provide the clearest illustration of this proposition. As is well known, the Congress, BJP and BSP were all better financed than the SP which, especially after the...

-Down to Earth   Punjab has been in the grip of cancer for over a decade but the government has ignored the threat.  It all started with a knot in her left breast. Within no time it grew to the size of a tennis ball. In pain, 40-year-old Raj Rani went to the doctor in her village in Punjab’s Ferozepur district. Finding no relief, she started doing the rounds of government hospitals in...

Regulations covering public health should override personal rights and the country cannot wait any more for a good public health law. The health care industry, including institutions of medical education, hospitals and pharmaceutical businesses, have grown into behemoths that can do considerable harm in the absence of independent and effective regulatory systems. While there are no success stories in the regulation of any kind of industry in India, I will focus...