-Live Mint The Sonia Gandhi -led National Advisory Council (NAC) may be moving closer to formulating a pre-legislative process that will involve a thorough, time-bound discussion of Bills before they become law. “The need for such a policy of consultation is necessary to evolve from a representative democracy to a participatory, deliberative democracy, particularly for accountability to the people in the formulation of law and policy,” said the draft recommendation of NAC’s working...

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...

-The Hindustan Times India has earned the dubious distinction of reporting most under-five child mortality in 2011 in the world, says a new United Nations global estimate on child mortality. The United Nations Children Fund report to be released in New York on Thursday says that 16.55 lakh children below the age of five died in India in 2011, almost six times more than the similar figure for China. About 2.49 under five deaths...

-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...

-NDTV Harda, Madhya Pradesh: A day after the victory of those sitting on a jal satyagraha in Madhya Pradesh's Khandwa district, the focus today shifted to Harda where a similar protest is going on for the last 13 days. More than 30 villagers are sitting here in neck-deep water demanding the water level in the Indira Sagar Dam be brought down to 260 metres from 262 metres, and rehabilitation of affected...