-Frontline Is there a shift in the attitude of Kerala society towards the value of daughters? Is son preference spreading in a State once known to be above extreme gender bias? A recent study on child sex ratio generates more questions than it answers. By R. KRISHNAKUMAR in Thiruvananthapuram ABORTION of female foetuses after parents learn of their gender using medical diagnostic techniques is believed to be one of the central reasons...

-The Business Standard Says licence terms extended to 15 years on advice of erstwhile Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India, a lender to many telcos Giving a clean chit to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the 2G spectrum allocation case in 2008, the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) that looked into telecom spectrum allocations has turned the heat on the numerous decisions taken in the sector between 1998 and 2004, during...

-The Economic Times The government's plan to make the Aadhaar number the centrepiece of the cash-transfer system is now facing opposition from a new quarter: banks. Several banks, led by the State Bank of India, have expressed reservation against jettisoning their current systems in favour of the platform created by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which issues the Aadhaar number and wants to make it the basis to authenticate...

-The Hindu Imphal: The Manipur Women's Commission has said it is imperative to hold an in-depth police investigation into the April 3 murder of Satyabhama Ningombam. Talking to journalists here, Chairperson Ibetombi Irengbam said the police should interact with the bereaved family, local residents and employees of the Pathology department of the Regional Institute of Medical Sciences here, where Sayabhama was a research fellow. The post-mortem report should be properly studied and if...

The recent Supreme Court judgment dismissing pharma giant Novartis’ claim for patent protections in India for its award-winning and prohibitively priced anti-leukemia drug Glivec has renewed the focus on accessibly-priced drugs – in particular the failure of the Indian public healthcare system and health policy to ensure affordable drugs for all. Studies show that as much as 70% of health spending in India comes from out-of-pocket payments, with 50-80% of...