-The Economic Times India on Thursday voted in favour of a US-sponsored censure motion against SRI Lanka in the 47-member UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. The government's domestic political compulsions seems to have prevailed over the country's strategic interests. Twenty-four countries, including India, voted for the resolution and 15 against, while eight nations abstained. Among the countries which voted against the resolution were China, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Maldives. India's decision was...

-The Telegraph On Monday mornings, the white ambassadors with red beacons go missing from the premises of the municipality in Visakhapatnam. Instead, a queue of bicycles adorns the parking ground in front of the office. Commissioner B. Ramanjaneyalu and his senior officials may be entitled to government cars but on the week’s first working day, they have to leave the comfort of their cars behind and compulsorily bike to office. It’s all part...

-The Telegraph A comment attributed to SRI SRI Ravi Shankar that government schools breed Naxalites has sparked a furore, forcing the spiritual guru to issue a clarification today. Speaking at the 25th anniversary of a private school in Jaipur yesterday, Ravi Shankar had said: “Government ko koi school nahi chalana chahiye. Aksar paya jata hai ki government school se padhe hue bacche hi is tarha naxalvad me hinsa ke marg me chale...

The UPA-II has used the Budget to again play politics with hunger. But it has paid no heed to the ticking time bomb of growing social tensions as 58 million Indians living off agriculture slide deeper into poverty. The Economic Survey says more than half the population is dependent on a sector whose share in the economy is shrinking. The urban-rural income divide is therefore steadily widening, a tinder box that...

-The Hindu   The March 2000 encounter at Pathribal in Jammu and Kashmir that claimed the lives of seven civilians was nothing but a cold-blooded murder and no sanction was required to prosecute the Army personnel involved in the incident. This submission was made on Monday by senior counsel Ashok Bhan, who appeared for the CBI, before a Bench of Justices B.S. Chauhan and Swatanter Kumar in the Supreme Court. The Centre had asserted...