-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday threw its weight behind efforts to clean up Delhi's air, agreeing to explore various options including banning diesel cars from the Capital's roads and stopping trucks from passing through the city to tackle the growing menace of pollution. A bench of Chief Justice T S Thakur and Justice R Banumathi expressed shock over the high pollution level in the city and...

-Hindustan Times Delhi is staring at chaos as its already stretched public transport system -- especially the DTC and metro -- will have little room for millions of vehicle owners who will be barred from driving once road rationing kicks in. The city has 2.7 million private cars and 5.8 million two-wheelers, official data shows. Come January 1, half of these -- around 4.3 million vehicles -- will be off the road...

-The Hindu The restrictions on private vehicle usage may have got most of the media coverage, but are by no means the only steps the government has announced. Nationally, over 35 per cent of urban households own a motorised two-wheeler and just under 10 per cent own a car, jeep or van. In Delhi, where per capita incomes are among the highest in the country, these proportions are much higher: nearly 40...

-The Hindu The observation by the Supreme Court that political leaders should not take criticism as a personal insult highlights a particular kind of intolerance that is rarely referred to in the ongoing debate on the subject: the inability of public figures to tolerate criticism and their repeated resort to criminal defamation proceedings to stifle adverse comment. Nothing exemplifies this as much as the 100-odd prosecutions launched by the government of...

-The Indian Express Education outcomes may have declined under the RTE, but Scrapping the no-detention policy is not the answer. In the five years since the potentially transformative Right to Education Act (RTE) was implemented, several studies have documented the decline and stagnation of learning levels in school. The Annual Status of Education Reports have painted a dismal picture. Most children emerge from primary school lacking even rudimentary arithmetic and reading...