-The Hindu HYDERABAD / KAKINADA / ELURU: Several thousand people were evacuated from low-lying areas, standing crops in a few lakh acres were marooned and coconut trees and electric poles were uprooted in the three coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh as the severe cyclonic storm Helen made a landfall near Machilipatnam on Friday afternoon. Even after landfall, the system was expected to maintain the intensity of cyclonic storm for six hours and...

-The Hindu The Gujarat snooping incident should be used as an opportunity to ask how the government has assumed the power to order such invasive, unchecked surveillance. On November 15, a pair of investigative portals released a set of audio transcripts depicting an extraordinarily invasive and scrupulous surveillance of a young woman by the Gujarat Police. Its implications, LIMited as they may appear to those who consider privacy a besmirched value, in...

-The Hindu Says Kerala DGP in reply to RTI query Kochi (Kerala): How many innocent people are lodged in prisons across Kerala? About 40 per cent of the inmates are not guilty of any crime, says a reply from the office of the Director General of Prisons and Correctional Services to a query asked under provisions of the Right to Information (RTI) Act. The Director General, Alexander Jacob, said at a public function...

-The Hindu The Bali ministerial conference in December presents a crucial opportunity to bring about changes in WTO rules Ending hunger and poverty requires major national policy initiatives in developing countries. The United Nations Secretary-General has articulated a broad zero hunger vision, endorsed and embraced as a priority by national leaders in many developing countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia. Production of food by small cultivators in developing countries has a...

-The Hindu India needs an early agreement, and also adequate atmospheric "space" in terms of allowed carbon emissions to pursue its development goals. It needs to take a proactive stance on this By all accounts, no dramatic developments are to be expected from the 19th edition of the Conference of Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on CLIMate Change (UNFCCC) that started in Warsaw last week. But it is generally...