-Down to Earth   Delhi High Court exempts four private hospitals from treating the poor for free. Experts fear other hospitals will follow Many a poor patient has benefitted from the Supreme Court's 2011 order which mandates that all private hospitals which received land at a lower price from the government have to treat a certain number of people from the economically weaker sections (EWS) for free. Take the case of four-year-old Shagun, born...

-The Indian Express   A new study on the Dal Lake could point the way in dealing with ecological challenges   A multi-dimensional group of experts from the Bangalore-based biodiversity and environment think tank, ATREE (Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment), embarked on a wide-ranging study to save Srinagar's Dal Lake. The ATREE team of experts includes a water quality scientist, a hydrologist, a sociologist, an institutional management and governance expert and...

-Live Mint   Recent Maoist violence highlights the conflicts that centre around the model of India's economic growth   New Delhi: The deaths of nine people from violence related directly to the general election-occurring in and around polling booths-are an early warning to the next government that it must start thinking about how to balance economic growth with social justice and equity, experts said.   These deaths-mostly in areas hit by Maoist violence-highlight the conflicts that...

-IPS News   New Delhi: Bhure Lal, a 33-year-old street-food vendor, has been selling his spicy ‘chaat' outside the New Delhi Railway Station for 15 years. But despite a punishing 12-hour work schedule, and a new law to protect hawkers like him, he doesn't take home enough to feed his family. More than half of Lal's weekly income from the ‘chaat', a lip-smacking pot-pourri that is particularly popular with women, is extorted by...

-Frontline   A Delhi High Court verdict says the State government is bound to ensure that poor and vulnerable sections of society have access to treatment for rare and chronic diseases. SEVEN-YEAR-OLD Mohammed Ahmed Khan looked on helplessly as his father, Sirajuddin, narrated the sordid tale of the loss of four of his children to Gaucher's disease, a rare genetic disease that requires lifelong, exorbitantly expensive enzyme replacement therapy. Sirajuddin, a rickshaw...