-The Hindustan Times Kolkata: In a move to protect whistle-blowers in the country, a division bench of the Calcutta High Court on Wednesday ruled that a petition under the Right to Information (RTI) Act can be made by using only a post box number without giving the name and address. The ruling was aimed at protecting applicants or RTI activists from attack or harassment by persons who do not want information about...

-Outlook New Delhi: Women activists and senior journalists today expressed dissatisfaction over the way Tehelka management handled the issue of the alleged sexual assault of a woman journalist by its Editor Tarun Tejpal and said law should take its course as it was not an internal matter. They were critical of the statements made by Tehelka Managing Editor Shoma Chaudhury who said it was not a police case which the organisation will...

-The Telegraph Thiruvananthapuram: The Centre's move to implement an ecology panel's report on conservation of the Western Ghats has provoked a call for a 48-hour civil disobedience agitation by the Catholic Church in Kerala, starting Sunday midnight. The Church claims the K. Kasturirangan report, notified on Wednesday, will hit the livelihoods of farmers living in the "high ranges" - foothill areas bordering the forests - and force them to relocate. Green activists deny...

-The Hindustan Times Patna: Panic-stricken people in Meghalaya today rushed to grocery stores and purchased salt at exorbitant prices following wild rumours that the commodity was in short supply. In neighbouring West Bengal, similar rumours sent people in Siliguri, Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri districts rushing to stores and buy salt at Rs100-150 a kg since Thursday night. In Bihar, where it all started, the police arrested 21 persons on charges of hoarding and...

-The Hindu The Supreme Court, which on Tuesday ordered compulsory registration of First Information Reports, noted that the burking (suppression) of crime might itself be in the range of 60 lakh cases every year. Quoting figures from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), a five-judge Constitution Bench, said: "Registration of FIRs leads to less manipulation in criminal cases and lessens incidents of ‘antedated' FIR or deliberately delayed FIR." The NCRB figures showed that...