A 26-year-old man from Hooghly who lost his tongue to cancer in a Mumbai hospital last week has lent his voice to a public health campaign urging the Bengal government to ban the sale of gutka laced with tobacco. Mantu Mahato, who was diagnosed with advanced tongue cancer earlier this year, five years after he started chewing gutka, has written a letter to chief minister Mamata Banerjee urging her to ban...

-The Times of India The Central Vigilance Commission has asked the CBI to examine a complaint about alleged losses suffered by the public exchequer in the allocation of coal blocks between 2006 and 2009, in what can potentially be fodder for civil society as well as the opposition seeking to Attack the government over Coalgate. Although the complaint of BJP MPs Prakash Javadekar and Hansraj Ahir was forwarded by the CVC to...

Terming a new law that raises the age of consent for sex from 16 to 18 years "undemocratic" and "regressive", a trial court feared it would act as a "tool for the police to harass minors". The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act ( PCSOA), passed by Parliament in the recently concluded session, criminalizes all sex by teenagers. "Such a move would open the floodgates for prosecution of boys for offences...

-Reuters SUPALI: Two years ago, Vilas Yelmar took out a 200,000 rupee ($3,610) bank loan to develop a small grape orchard in a dusty hamlet southeast of Mumbai. The bank has repeatedly asked for the loan to be repaid, but Yelmar, whose annual income has risen to 2 million rupees, has spent the money on a new sport utility vehicle and a lavish family wedding. He is one of an increasing number...

-The Economic Times The government has removed roadblocks to coal mining by leading business houses and taken the first step to relax scrutiny of corporate expenditure on oil and gas fields, in a burst of action that has cheered investors and industrialists in the languishing energy sector. A group of ministers recommended to the cabinet on Wednesday that Reliance Power's Chhatrasal block, which is Attached to the 4,000 mw Sasan Ultra Mega...