-The Telegraph Kolkata: The state government today set February 28 as the deadline for distributing Aadhaar cards among all Bengal residents, prompting many to wonder about the feasibility of covering over six crore people in little over five-and-a-half months. Providing Aadhaar numbers to all citizens above the age of five is the precursor to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's dream project of rolling out a direct benefit-transfer scheme, replacing the leak-prone subsidy system. The...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court admonished the government for failing to set up an independent environmental regulator, which the prime minister promised to set up in 2011. The court has asked the environment ministry, which currently has all regulatory powers, to give an explanation in four weeks. "You want to retain all power with the ministry (of environment and forests). You should think of yourself as a policy-making ministry,...

-AP WASHINGTON: Millions of sex-selective abortions in India have skewed gender ratios, and the origins of the problem can be traced to American-supported population control strategies decades ago, a US congressional panel heard Tuesday. Republican Rep. Chris Smith, a staunch opponent of abortion, took up the issue at the House subcommittee on global health and human rights at a hearing titled, "India's Missing Girls." The panel has often been a forum for tough...

-The Hindu     The draft policy on the use of forest land is at odds with sound conservation principles and fails to plug holes in current guidelines that work to the advantage of project promoters The Supreme Court in July 2011 while delivering the Lafarge Judgment laid down guidelines on forest clearance procedures. These were to operate till a new regulatory mechanism was put in place. Two years after the judgment, the Ministry...

-PTI Expressing surprise on the absence of latest official data on malnutrition, a Parliamentary panel has asked the government to come up with a time-bound action plan to reduce under-nutrition and ensure real time flow of information for proper monitoring. "We are surprised to note that in this modern era of information technology, there is no recent official data on malnutrition. What is available is seven years old and outdated...National Family Health...