-The Hindustan Times Government officials riding high on hopes that privacy concerns could blunt the right to information are in for disappointment. An expert panel set up to build a framework for a privacy regulation in India has brushed aside suggestions that the information law was trampling upon privacy of public servants or individuals in public life. The Justice (retd) Ajit Prakash Shah panel has told the government that privacy was only...

-The Hindustan Times The recent spurt in protests against projects from Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu to Mahan coal block in Madhya Pradesh to Tata’s Power Plant in Mundra, Gujarat, has raised a key question --- are American and European philanthropic groups supporting these agitations?   A conference organised by such groups from the two most developed regions of the world --- US and Europe --- in Istanbul this July provides an insight how...

-The Hindustan Times Chhattisgarh police found something out of the ordinary during a recent raid at a Maoist camp in Abujhmad forest: Primary-level textbooks for children. Police fear the books — which cover subjects ranging from social studies to mathematics — are being used by Naxals to teach Maoist propaganda to children in the area. “We only had sketchy inputs about Naxals teaching their doctrines. This is the first time primary-level books...

-The Hindustan Times The number of infants (below age of one year) succumbing in state has gone down by three for every 1000 children born in the course of last year. Good news, but with a rider. The state continues to retain the infamous tag of being the worst place to be born in the country as it still records the highest infant mortality rate (IMR) among the 29 states and...

-The Hindustan Times Delhi reported 32 new cases of dengue on Saturday, taking the total number of patients to 617. The actual cases may be more than double, as the figure of positive dengue cases given by private hospitals is much higher than what the civic bodies have been reporting. Municipal officials argued that most private hospitals don't perform the mandatory IgM Capture Elisa test. "As per government of India rules, a case is...