-Outlook This could be the UPA’s worst cut to its beloved aam admi. Healthcare has virtually been handed over to privateers. Not For Those Who Need It Most Govt seems to have abandoned healthcare to the private sector Diagnosing An Ailing Republic     70 per cent of India still lives in the villages, where only two per cent of qualified allopathic doctors are available     Due to lack of access to medical care, rural India...

-The Hindu The ground beneath Arundhati Roy’s seismic claims on the Parliament House attack, is shaky — to say the least “Everyone is entitled to their own opinions”, the American politician Daniel Patrick Moynihan — among others — is credited with having said, “but not to his own facts.” Muhammad Afzal Guru’s execution on Saturday morning — a grim spectacle, where the Indian government disgraced itself by denying his family a last meeting,...

-Kashmir Times If psychologist Ashis Nandy had planned to ignite a potentially ugly controversy at the Jaipur Literary Festival, he couldn't have done better than by insinuating intimate links between corruption and Dalits, Adivasis and Other Backward Classes. After warning that he was about to make a "very undignified" and "almost vulgar" statement, "which will shock you", Nandy said: "It is a fact that most of the corrupt come from the...

-PTI The 'rarest of rare case' test is not 'judge centric' but depends on the perception of society and whether it would approve the award of death sentence to those convicted in certain types of crimes, the Supreme Court has held. "Courts award death sentence, because situation demands, due to constitutional compulsion, reflected by the will of the people, and not judge-centric," a bench headed by Justice K S Radhakrishnan said. "To award...

-The Hindu Court says appellants deserve no sympathy but modifies death sentence Holding that the age of the accused and the possibility of their reformation were determining factors, the Supreme Court has redefined the ‘rarest of rare’ cases and awarded 30-year imprisonment to two accused who murdered four persons in August 2000. Giving this ruling, a Bench of Justices K.S. Radhakrishnan and Dipak Misra said, “Age, definitely, is a factor which cannot be...