The media's failure to recruit Dalits is a betrayal of the constitutional guarantees of equality and fraternity. There were almost none in 1992, and there are almost none today: Dalits in the newsrooms of India's media organisations. Stories from the lives of close to 25 per cent of Indians (Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) are unlikely to be known — much less broadcast or written about. Unless, of course, the stories are...

With the Nitish-led NDA government firmly in the saddle in the state, with not even an iota of political instability, world powers have started taking keen interest in Bihar's progress and exploring opportunities for possible investment. In the past less than 12 hours, highly-placed representatives of the US and the UK called on the chief minister and praised him for the positive developments in the state. US undersecretary of state for political...

-The Times of India Responding to a PIL filed by a retired Intelligence Bureau (IB) officer pointing at the complete absence of constitutional or statutory sanction for the agency, the Karnataka high court last week sought an explanation from the Centre, giving it time until March 30 to issue an executive order justifying IB's existence. The IB was formed on December 23, 1887, by the then British secretary of state as a...

-The Times of India Faced with a looming embarrassment over the disclosure of irregularities in the allocation of coal blocks, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday sought to play down the findings of the auditor, asserting that his final report would spare the government. Speaking against the backdrop of Opposition's criticism and its demand for a CBI probe into what is being called " Coalgate", Mukherjee said that that the report scooped...

India's decision this month to produce Germany-based multinational Bayer's anti-cancer drug Nexavar, in the first use of "compulsory licensing" in South Asia, will save lives but also raises intricate questions. Under the compulsory licensing process, a government can under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules bypass a patent owner's rights after three years and order the manufacture and sale of life-saving medicines at much cheaper cost than by obtaining the medicine from...