-The Hindu Uttarakhand reiterates that our rulers have contemptuous disregard for the advice of the best scientists and would rather listen to contractors and builders to whom they are beholden for funds In the early 1980s, while doing research on the environmental history of Uttarakhand, I sometimes visited the library of the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology in Dehradun. Most of the journals in the library dealt with geology and earth sciences,...

-The Hindu The Supreme Court judgment on Glivec is a blow for a patent regime with a higher threshold of inventiveness On April 1, 2013, the Supreme Court upheld the Intellectual Property Appellate Board's decision to deny patent protection to Novartis's application covering a beta crystalline form of imatinib -the medicine Novartis brands as Glivec, and which is very effective against the form of cancer known as chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML). The...

-The Times of India NAGPUR: The rural police, under a project to empower women and initiate village-based community service, have adopted a policy to reach out to young girls through various means. Roping in non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the rural police plan to place complaint boxes in 426 girls' school in the district and set up a mobile library. In the backdrop of the shocking gang rape and dacoity at Kuhi last month,...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: Is India witnessing a spurt in unnecessary hysterectomies? Data released by international charity organization Oxfam on February 6 says as much. The agency said that unnecessary hysterectomies were being performed in Indian private hospitals to economically exploit poor women as well as government-run insurance schemes. A right to information (RTI) request filed by one of Oxfam's local NGOs in the Dausa district of Rajasthan showed that 258...

-The Hindu The debate over the cartoons used in NCERT textbooks as aids to learning have thrown up a range of issues. The discussion has crystallised around a set of oppositions: motivated political correctness of our elected representatives vs. the necessity of preemptory parliamentary intervention on educational material appropriate for schools; institutional autonomy vs. political responsibility of a state presiding over a diverse and fraught society; the hubris of ‘experts’ vs....