-Down to Earth WHO agency says there is compelling evidence to classify diesel fumes as deadly carcinogen along with tobacco, asbestos The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a part of the World Health Organization, gives its scientific verdict that diesel engine exhaust can cause lung cancer in humans. In its report released on June 12, IARC has reclassified diesel exhaust from its group 2A list of probable carcinogens to its...

The ASCI report says there is ample evidence of “market dominance” in specific media markets, but the government has ignored the report for three years. A ministry official tells PARANJOY GUHA THAKURTA that it is unlikely to be implemented. A report prepared by an independent institution recommending imposition of cross-media ownership restrictions recently entered the public domain nearly three years after it was submitted,  following a rebuke to the government by...

-The Economic Times Decks have been cleared for reintroduction of the Companies Bill, 2011, in the monsoon session. If the bill is passed after endorsing all the suggestions made by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance, corporate social responsibility (CSR) would, for the first time in the world, become mandatory.  The report recommends that companies with net worth above Rs 500 crore, or an annual turnover of over Rs 1,000 crore, earmark...

-The Economic Times   Pushed to the wall by an overly cautious drug regulator and an alarmist Indian government, clinical trial companies are looking at South East Asian countries to expand their business and escape the red tape of Indian authorities.  Clinical research companies (CROs), that were aspiring to become billion- dollar companies by 2010, had to rework their plans after a Parliamentary Standing Committee report questioned the allegedly unfair and unethical trials...

-The Times of India The Central Bureau of Investigation will soon write to coal producing state governments seeking to know the basis of their recommendations given to private companies who were allocated coal blocks between 2006 and 2009. The agency in its prima facie investigation has found some material which shows that several ineligible companies had allegedly got the coal blocks during the period, CBI sources said.  The CBI is now trying...