-The Hindu About 40 networks and civil society groups from 16 districts of Rajasthan on Saturday demanded that the flagship free medicine supply scheme at government hospitals in the State be brought under an independent legislation or included in the Rajasthan Public Services Guarantee Act, 2011, to remove bottlenecks being faced for the past eight months. Activists under the banner of Jan Swasthya Abhiyan praised the scheme for its reach and objectives,...

-The Business Standard Odisha, the first state to have formulated the Climate Change Action Plan (CCAP) in the country seems to have dug its feet over the implementation of the ambitious plan aimed at fine tuning the balance between industrial growth and environment protection. Delay in preparation of reports by concerned departments, delineating action points and strategies for implementation coupled with lack of inter-departmental coordination has held up the plan implementation envisaging...

A scientific and public scrutiny of the methodology used by the expert panel will only add to the efforts to save the Western Ghats. On May 23, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) posted the report of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) on its website honouring a landmark judgment of the Central Information Commission triggered by an activist seeking access to the material. In this judgment, the CIC...

-The Economic Times The Union Cabinet is expected to take up for approval a bill that deals with manual scavenging and rehabilitation of scavengers.  For nearly two years now, the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council has been advocating for a new law to deal with the indignities of manual scavenging and for their rehabilitation. Gandhi had, in November 2010, written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asking the government to take steps to...

-The Hindu Police arrested 25 members of Students Federation of India (SFI) here on Tuesday when they tried to picket the office of the Chief Education Officer demanding implementation of 25 per cent reservation of seats for poor students in educational institutions, as assured by the Government under the Right to Education Act. They tried to enter the CEO's office when the police stopped them and arrested them. Arularasan, district secretary of...