-The Indian Express The 18th Conference of the Parties (CoP 18) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) took place in Doha over two weeks, ending on December 7. There was a range of expectations expressed before the meeting. To resolve competing claims for hosting the conference, it was decided that Korea would host a pre-CoP meeting to help prepare for the CoP itself. The 17th CoP had been...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Rural India in poverty, Jairam Ramesh blames private health sector
-The Indian Express Lamenting the virtual collapse of public health system in major parts of the country, Union Minister Jairam Ramesh today said rural families are falling into debt trap due to expensive private health sector. In large parts of the country, particularly in central and eastern India and in tribal belts, he said public health system is "not abysmal but has collapsed". "Indebtedness caused by private health sector is one of the...
More »This is not the dawn we dreamt of -Syeda Hameed
-The Hindustan Times The recent arrest of two young girls in Maharashtra - Shaheen Dhada and Rinu Srinivasan - for posting and liking a Facebook comment questioning the shutdown in Mumbai for Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray's funeral reminded me of an incident that happened a few years after Independence and Partition. It was 1952 and I was playing in a neighbourhood park when some children coerced me into telling them my name....
More »Law and practice
-The Indian Express Apex court is seized of the IT Act’s 66A, but tightening the law may not be sufficient to prevent its misuse Thanks to a PIL, the Supreme Court has come to grips with the controversial Article 66A of the Information Technology (Amendment) Act of 2008, which has been misused to penalise political dissent. The three clauses of the section are designed to criminalise improper communications online, ranging from menacing...
More »Why Sibal is smarter than Rajiv Gandhi -R Balaji
-The Telegraph Take a quiz. Here are the clues. The honeymoon has soured and the great hope sunk The government is under the shadow of kickbacks allegations The government decides to call criticism “grossly indecent”, “scurrilous” and “intended for blackmail” and crucify the critics The government wants to prescribe a minimum period of jail for the critics. Now the question: Name the year and the government. That was the summer of 1988. The Rajiv Gandhi government had run...
More »