-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Narendra Modi government has strongly favoured retention of the capital punishment with the two government-appointed nominees submitting their dissent notes on the Law Commission's recommendation on phased abolition of death penalty. The panel, in its 242-page report submitted to the government and the Supreme Court on Monday, recommended abolition of death penalty for all crimes other than terrorism-related offences and waging war against the country. Releasing...

-Economic and Political Weekly The health ministry's move on HPV vaccine feasibility is ill-advised. The union health ministry has asked the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI) to examine the feasibility of introducing the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine in the country’s universal immunisation programme. The NTAGI has been given three months for this task. The HPV vaccine, which is supposed to protect against cervical cancer in girls and women, is generally...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: There is widespread support for net neutrality on the government's citizen engagement platform mygov.in where a majority of people have voiced their concerns against zero-rated plans. There are nearly 70,000 comments on the website with just a day to go before the end of the participative process and most of these seek unfettered and non-discriminatory access to the internet. "Telecom should not define policy. Net neutrality...

-The Hindu In Net Neutrality, differentiation is fine, discrimination is not. You can differentiate based on what kind of content it is, but if you discriminate based on who the content is for that is not fine. Amid the ongoing debate over net neutrality, Vishal Misra, Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Columbia University, said while all telecom service providers and companies such as Facebook say they support Net...

-Economic and Political Weekly The Indian weaver is dismissed in high places as an embarrassing anachronism, despite demand for his or her skills and products. In the new millennium, globalisation and a mindless acquiescence to imported notions of a good life threaten to take over, even as the West looks East for better concepts of sustainable living. Analysing today's crisis in the handloom sector, plagued by low-cost imitations from power looms,...