-Outlook The Supreme Court today asked the National Green Tribunal to take action against industrial units polluting Ganga including snapping water and power connections to them while slamming Centre and State Pollution Control Boards for their "failure" to punish erring units. Expressing deep concern over the present pollution level of the river, which it held to be the "lifeline" of the country, a bench headed by Justice T S Thakur gave a...

-The Hindu Chennai: Wondering which spot to dig for groundwater or what is the quality of water in the land you own? Are you still thinking of folks walking around with those peculiar ‘Y'-shaped twigs? It's not quite that way any more. We've become more scientific, we're using special tools to figure out where the water lies. The ‘we' in this case refers to the State Ground and Surface Water Resources Data...

-The Hindu Court rejects argument that disclosing names will violate right to privacy The Supreme Court made it clear to the Centre on Tuesday that it could not take shelter under the confidentiality clause for not disclosing all names of black-money account holders it had received from abroad. At the outset, Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi told the court, "We (government) are not interested in hiding any information from the court. This government constituted the...

-India Today New Delhi: The Food and Supply department has taken the social media route for encouraging Delhiites to expose loopholes, including pilferage, through sting operations in the public distribution system. Prior to this measure, the department had launched two toll-free numbers - 1967 and 1800-11-0841 - for the people to lodge their grievances. A call centre has also been functioning for taking up PDS related complaints. The call centre functions from...

-The Business Standard   NC Saxena, a former member of the National Advisory Council believes that the regulatory regime in the states continues to be oppressive. In an e-mailed interview with Aditi Phadnis, Saxena says that the fundamental problem in India is the low tax-GDP ratio and neither the last government nor the current one seems interested in increasing revenues. Edited excerpts: * The new government appears to be watering down a lot...