-The Hindu   ‘We have drafted a Bill to deal with violence against women' Berlin: India on Thursday found itself once again in the dock on its high maternal and child mortality rates. The embarrassment happened in full view of the world press which had assembled to hear Manmohan Singh and Angela Merkel on the outcomes of the Indo-German Inter-Governmental Consultations. Replying to a specific question by a German journalist, the Prime Minister admitted...

-The Economic Times The recent patent rulings in India may get frequently challenged in international courts if the government yields to the European Union's demand of including matters related to intellectual property in the investors-state dispute mechanism in their proposed trade pact, health activist groups have warned. An investor-state dispute resolution mechanism typically allows foreign investors to sue countries for compensation if national laws, policies, court rulings of the country infringe upon...

-The Hindu Taking a serious view of the inordinate delay in disbursal of the amount that led to the suicide of the parents of one of the engineers of a ship ‘Pratibha Cauvery,' the National Human Rights Commission has asked the acting Chief Justice of the Madras High Court to take appropriate action against Registrar General G. Chockalingam for his failure to perform his duty. In early March, the National Commission for...

-The Indian Express April 1 marked the third anniversary of the passage of the Right of Children for Free and Compulsory Education (RTE). There is little argument that the implementation of the RTE in these three years has been less than satisfactory. Deadlines for the enforcement of input norms - infrastructure, pupil-teacher ratios - have come and gone and potentially game-changing provisions, like 25 per cent reservation for economically weaker sections...

-The Times of India Reflecting the grievances of people in Jammu and Kashmir and north-eastern states, the Supreme Court on Tuesday said prolonged deployment of armed forces in disturbed areas was bound to result in extra-judicial killings. Dealing with the issues raised by public interest litigations alleging 1,528 extra-judicial killings in Manipur in the last three decades, a bench of Justices Aftab Alam and Ranjana P Desai said, "Manipur's woes must...