Between 2009 and February 2011, at least 14 people were charged with sedition in India London: The typical citizen could be forgiven for fearing that the world’s largest democracy is hurtling towards George Orwell’s 1984 rather than 2013. In late August the government’s department of telecommunications, citing the “communal tensions” around Assam, blocked more than 300 individual web addresses, including the Twitter profile pages of some journalists. It also ordered a limit...

-Live Mint CIC suspends hearings to seek govt’s opinion; RTI Activists criticize the move, saying it could lead to delays The Supreme Court said on Thursday that information commissions at the central and state levels should have two-person benches, with one person being a “judicial member” and the other an “expert member”. That prompted the Central Information Commission (CIC) to suspend hearings to enable it to seek the government’s opinion and led to...

-The Hindu A Planning Commission draft document has made proposals that fail to reflect the case for expanding and improving public-funded medical services and reining in private operators In the health sector, the buzz these days is all about Universal Health Care (UHC). While health Activists see in it potential to ensure access to quality health care for common citizens, commercial bodies seem to be eyeing the huge scope for profit from...

-The Telegraph Swiss pharma company Novartis today told the Supreme Court that if it gets an Indian patent on its anti-cancer drug Glivec, it would continue giving free drugs to 85 per cent patients till 2018 provided prices were left untouched. But the court described its scheme of classifying people on the basis of their incomes as “too complicated” and again urged the company to reduce prices. Whatever the scheme, the end result...

-Live Mint NAC wants Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna to be absorbed into new policy for universal health coverage  The National Advisory Council (NAC), which sets the policy agenda for the Congress party led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, wants the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna (RSBY) insurance scheme to be absorbed into the new policy for universal health coverage (UHC), taking the latter closer to realization.   This is part of the government’s bid to move...