-Live Mint India’s biggest crackdown on websites and blogs hosting hate messages was hobbled by the absence of a policy on cyber security, escalating panic and resulting in an exodus of people belonging to north-eastern states from several cities. The government initially identified 245 such websites, but could block only 207 of them, saying it couldn’t shut out the other 38 because of technical difficulties. It has identified and is in the...

-The Hindu Scheme coming for free distribution of medicines through public hospitals and health centres The government will expand the scope of the NRHM to all towns and cities, by converting it into a National Health Mission (NHM), Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced on Wednesday. In his Independence Day speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort here, he said the government was also formulating a new scheme for distribution of free medicines...

-PTI With the twin objectives of preventing corrosion of tracks and providing odourless toilets to passengers, railways are replacing existing ones with bio-toilets. "While some green toilets designed by DRDO are already being manufactured and fitted in coaches, we are committed to manufacture 25,00 bio-toilets in the current fiscal," said a senior Railway Ministry official. The problem of environmental degradation and corrosion of tracks due to night soil has been engaging the attention...

A team of auditors from the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India will travel on select trains originating and terminating at Sealdah and Howrah stations to ascertain whether their introduction was at all necessary. Nearly all these trains were introduced by Mamata Banerjee during her tenure as railway minister between 2009 and May 2011. According to sources in the CAG, this exercise is part of a thematic review on 'Introduction of...

-The Economic Times Special Economic Zones will need to fulfill provisions of the proposed Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, if the rural development ministry has its way.  The draft bill, currently being circulated for inter-ministerial consultation, does not exempt land acquired under the Special Economic Zones Act, 2005, Works of Defence Act, 1903, and Cantonments Act, 2006, from adhering to the acquisition, rehabilitation and resettlement provisions of the proposed legislation.  Acquisition...