-The Hindu There is no case for water privatisation. In pushing for it, we are ignoring the key issue, which is better governance, writes Himanshu Thakkar Privatisation of water is unwarranted, unjustified and unnecessary. In pushing for it, we are not really addressing the key issue plaguing the water sector, which is a need for better governance. We need a democratic, transparent, accountable and participatory governance in a bottom-up approach, on each...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Supreme Court today decided to refer to a five-judge Constitution bench the question whether the right to free speech and expression includes "the right to insult another person's right to dignity". A bench of Justices Dipak MISra, A.M. Khanwilkar and M. Shantanagoudar asked senior advocates Harish Salve and Fali Nariman, assisting the court as amicus curiae, and a counsel for former Uttar Pradesh minister Azam Khan to...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Regulatory efforts to get doctors in India to prescribe medicines only through their generic names, initiated about 15 years ago, will need to overcome legal challenges and resistance from sections of doctors and the pharmaceutical industry, experts said. Senior pharmacologists and industry analysts have also said it will be MISleading to presume that prescriptions with generic names will automatically translate into lower medicine bills for patients as studies...

-TheWeek.in In a major decision that is likely to have wide-ranging repercussions, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has cancelled the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) registration of Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), barring it from receiving foreign funds. PHFI is a public-private initiative that aims to strengthen training, research and policy development in public health. The NGO was launched by the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2006. The...

-The Times of India JAIPUR: Across the country, payments worth Rs 9,124 crore are yet to be paid for work done in the 2016-17 financial year under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). This comes at a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi has created incentive schemes for rewarding those using the digital payment platform. Only days ago, 20-year-old Maharashtra student Shradha Mengshette was surprised to win Rs1...