-The Hindu Uttarakhand reiterates that our rulers have contemptuous disregard for the advice of the best scientists and would rather listen to contractors and builders to whom they are beholden for funds In the early 1980s, while doing research on the environmental history of Uttarakhand, I sometimes visited the library of the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology in Dehradun. Most of the journals in the library dealt with geology and earth sciences,...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Delhi now has the dubious distinction of being home to the most "honeymoon wives" - women abandoned by NRI husbands - in the country. The latest annual report of the NRI cell of the National Commission for Women (NCW) reveals that Delhi registered 59 such cases in 2012-13. Punjab, which has for years grappled with the problem of young brides abandoned within days or weeks of marriage, registered...

-The Times of India DEHRADUN: As if heart-wrenching images of children separated from their parents in the Uttarakhand disaster were not enough, state chief secretary Subhash Kumar on Wednesday is learnt to have told a four-member team of National Commission for Child Protection Rights that 1,227 children were reported missing in the state since the flashfloods. A top Uttarakhand IAS official told TOI that Kumar informed members of the visiting team that...

-The Times of India CHENNAI: It isn't a record to be proud of: For the last 10 years, Tamil Nadu has topped the National Crime Record Bureau's charts for road accidents in the country. In 2003, the state recorded a little more than 51,000 accidents, the highest in the country. Ten years later, in 2012, close to 68,000 were registered, again the largest number in the country. Close to eight accidents occur every...

-The Hindu There has been no public debate on the level of watch citizens can be put through, and on what the red lines should be while using intrusive mechanisms The tussle between government agencies' need for a better, faster and real-time interception, surveillance and monitoring mechanism through the Central Monitoring System (CMS), on the one hand, and demands by privacy, civil rights and free speech activists, for ensuring higher privacy for...