-The Times of India The Uniform Civil Code (UCC) is a dream long deferred, and now it looks like the courts can barely conceal their impatience. A Supreme Court bench, hearing a case on a Hindu woman's petition on inheritance, was recently stirred into ordering an examination of practices like polygamy and triple talaq in Muslim personal law, which it declared "injurious to public morals". The Centre is already on a deadline...

-Hindustan Times In the 1970s Deng Xiaoping explained that China’s one-child policy was being introduced to ensure “the fruits of economic growth are not devoured by population growth”. Last week, Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s rationale for officially abandoning the policy was the reverse: To ensure economic growth is not wrecked by population decrease. But it is probably too late to change China’s demographic future. China’s population has begun to age — and age...

-The Hindu Bengaluru: To deal with the rising number of cases, the Karnataka Information Commission is contemplating holding Right To Information (RTI) adalats across the city from next month. Currently, 30,000 cases are pending before the authority, which is struggling with reduced staff strength. “We receive close to 800 to 1,000 appeals a month and each Commissioner has to deal with 30 cases a day. We have four Commissioners and one Chief Commissioner...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: A Delhi government notification has paved the way for juvenile offenders and abandoned or surrendered children in the capital to get birth certificates if they lack one. The move, expected to be replicated across the country, will give lakhs of invisible children an official identity and make it easier for them to get into school and secure government welfare and documents, such as scholarships, passports and PAN cards. Only...

-Business Standard Since the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government put a moratorium on commercial cropping of Monsanto's Bt Brinjal in 2010, the Centre has received the first- ever proposal for clearance in five years to let farmers grow a transgenic food crop - a genetically modified hybrid variety of the mustard plant. The decision on the proposal would have to be taken by the environment ministry on behalf of the Union...