-The Telegraph   Had it not been for a tub of hot water and a celebrated judge in England in 1949, Bengal’s Singur law may have found itself in legal hot water. Justice I.P. Mukerji, who delivered the Singur judgment, was guided by a 62-year-old English case that dealt with hot water supply by a landlord, according to the order issued on Wednesday. The Calcutta judge used the principle of “purposive interpretation”, which figured...

The state's rice bowl is left empty An unviable minimum support price (MSP) for rice has forced farmers in Andhra Pradesh to leave their lands fallow. The movement is spreading to other states. “Farming never pays” is a familiar slogan among agriculturists across the world, and especially so in India. Nevertheless, many continue to cultivate their fields year after year, barely eking out an existence, toiling in the hope that the tide...

There can be two ways of looking at the latest mess on the 2G spectrum front in the form of the Prime Minister's Office supplying a sensitive note to a request under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. The widely-held view locates the root of this mess in rivalry between finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and home minister P Chidambaram, stemming from presumed prime ministerial ambitions when Dr Manmohan Singh faces serial...

The finance ministry may have amended the Prevention of Money Laundering Rules, 2005, to notify Aadhaar as adequate to meet KYC norms for opening bank accounts, putting it alongside other identity proofs, but banks are still confused Is a unique ID number or Aadhaar number issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) enough to satisfy the so-called know-your-customer (KYC) norms that banks have to ensure every account they open...

India will take at least 17 more years before it can reach the World Health Organization's ( WHO) recommended norm of one doctor per 1,000 people. The Planning Commission's high-level expert group (HLEG) on universal health coverage (UHC) - headed by Dr K Srinath Reddy - has predicted the availability of one allopathic doctor per 1,000 people by 2028. It has suggested setting up 187 medical colleges in 17 high focus...