-The Hindu If we are going to buy American, why not adopt the American way of giving local bodies the right to refuse entry to super stores in their area There is the United States of America and then there is the ‘idea’ of USA that exists in the minds of significant portions of the middle classes all across the globe. How this looks in real life varies slightly according to the...

-Live Mint Incidents at Bhopal and Indore highlight irregularities and ethical violations in some trials In 2004, doctors at the Bhopal Memorial Hospital and Research Centre (BMHRC), established exclusively for treating the victims of the 1984 gas leak, recruited unsuspecting survivors for clinical trials without their knowledge or consent; 14 participants died during the course of the trials. Together with the episode in Indore’s Maharaja Yashwantrao Hospital (that Mint reported on 10...

-The Indian Express Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh has proposed to “live fence” graveyards, dargahs and eidgahs under MGNREGA to protect them. In a letter to National Commission for Minorities chief Wajahat Habibullah, who had requested that boundary walls around these places be built under the employment guarantee scheme, Ramesh suggested that they “be provided with live fencing under the Land Development and Plantation works category of MGNREGA for which provisions may...

Remember Arjun Sengupta Committee Report? It’s the same report which put paid to government’s shifting poverty estimates by asserting that almost 80% Indian survive on less than Rs 20 per day. Known as the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector (NCEUS), the report has gone missing from the public domain. The official website of NCEUS is no more working: http://nceus.gov.in, raising doubts regarding someone, somewhere trying to hide...

-PTI LUCKNOW: In a bid to improve its image, which was marred by the multi-crore NRHM scam, the Uttar Pradesh health department is set to launch a health guarantee scheme for children in the age group of 2-16 years. "The planning to launch the scheme is at final stages and we will be launching it soon. SP government is committed for the cause of poor and I am ensuring that all the...