-The Telegraph Guwahati: The ministry of environment and forests has denied forest clearance to the 1,500MW Tipaimukh hydel project in Manipur and the 3,000MW Dibang multipurpose project in Arunachal Pradesh. The forest advisory committee (FAC), which met on July 11 and 12, has stated in its report that in both projects, the requirement of for-estland is large and will have an adverse impact on the general ecosystem of the area. Civil society organisations...

-The Hindu The Supreme Court's timidity in dealing with the law on prior sanction for prosecuting public servants has offered protection to the murderous and the corrupt While the encounter murders in Pathribal and their cover up are yet another blot on India's record in Kashmir, the legal issues they raise on accountability to the law affect the entire country. They touch the very core of the rule of law that is...

-The Telegraph Kolkata: Seedbeds are not yet ready in vast stretches of Bengal's rice bowl because of poor rainfall, raising the prospect of a slump in production and showing up the inability of catchy slogans alone in making farming less of a gamble in the monsoon. Rainfall in the four major rice-producing districts of Bengal till Monday was around 50 per cent less than the normal average, officials in the agriculture department...

-The United Nations Only one-third of the world's countries have national strategies for viral hepatitis, the United Nations health agency today said urging Governments to scale up measures to tackle this ‘silent epidemic,' in particular the five types that, over time, cause chronic and debilitating illnesses. "The fact that many hepatitis B and C infections are silent, causing no symptoms until there is severe Damage to the liver, points to the urgent...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Eminent citizens including former Delhi high court chief justice A P Shah, former cabinet secretary TRS Subramanian and former information commissioner Shailesh Gandhi have urged parliamentarians not to sign amendments to the RTI act when it is tabled. The government plans to bring amendments to the act to exclude political parties. The letter says that the RTI act has been used to uncover "certain arbitrariness and...