-The Hindu THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health’s intervention has finally brought to close an eight-year-long campaign waged by K.V. Babu, a physician from Kannur, whose relentless fight against the Indian Medical Association’s (IMA) product endorsements and the legal hassles that followed had eventually led him on a collision course with the Medical Council of India (MCI). In 2008, Dr. Babu had complained to the MCI against IMA, which had signed...

-Hindustan Times Less than a day before the Railway budget is presented in the parliament, former railways minister Dinesh Trivedi’s allegations against incumbent minister Suresh Prabhu of “fudging numbers” and concealing facts about the organisation’s financial health have surfaced in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, that also charges Prabhu of copying Trivedi’s earlier budget speech. Citing that the current Operating Ratio (every paisa spent against a rupee earned) had reached...

-PTI At present, it is mandatory for firms with 20 or more workers to subscribe to social security schemes New Delhi: In a bid to provide social security to additional 50 lakh workers under retirement fund body EPFO, the Labour Ministry has decided to halve the threshold for coverage of firms to 10 workers through an executive order. At present, it is mandatory under the Employees' Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act for...

-PTI A parliamentary panel today expressed dissatisfaction over lack of grievance redressal mechanism in a number of states for MGNREGA and pitched for strong monitoring for successful implementation of the flagship rural job scheme. The Standing Committee on Rural Development, chaired by AIADMK MP P Venugopal, in its eighteenth report said, "Slow progress on appointment of ombudsmen speaks volumes about functioning of the department of rural development on the issue. The Committee,...

-The Indian Express When the UPA government passed the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, that laid down in clear terms that the age of consent for sex is 18 years, even then activists had warned against such misuse. THE Supreme Court refused to extend the detention of the juvenile convicted in the 2012 Delhi gangrape saying it has to go by the law as it stands today. Lawmakers...