-The Hindu “Study these four men washing down the steps of this unpalatable Bombay hotel. The first pours water from a bucket, the second scratches the tiles with a twig broom, the third uses a rag to slop the dirty water down the steps into another bucket, which is held by the fourth. After they have passed, the steps are as dirty as before… They are not required to clean,” but...

-DNA It would be sad if the ghastly violence at Maruti Suzuki’s (MSIL) Manesar plant on July 18, 2012, in which a HR manager died, were to be understood simply as a ‘murderous workers’ vs ‘rational management’ kind of an incident. There is a history and a context to this violence, and how that is understood, and acknowledged, by India Inc. will indicate how serious we are about preventing such incidents...

-IANS The newspaper advertisements of Madhur Bhandarkar's upcoming movie "Heroine", that features lead actress Kareena Kapoor with a cigarette on movie sets, have drawn flak for blatant violation of anti-tobacco laws. In a letter written to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, NGO Health Related Information Dissemination Amongst Youth (HRIDAY) points out violation of law, regulating display of tobacco use in films. "Leading national dailies (on May 23) and online versions of several...

-The Indian Express In Raipur hospitals, a joke doing the rounds these days is: “Soon, someone will file an RTI to know the number of uteruses left in Chhattisgarh.” What has prompted it is, however, no joke. If a series of Media reports in the state is to be believed, the uteruses of thousands of women have been removed in unnecessary operations. These reports talk of doctors cheating BPL families by encouraging...

-The Economic Times The main objective of the Right to Information Act, 2005, is to provide access to information in order to promote transparency and accountability in the working of every public authority. The RTI Act defines 'public authority' as anybody or authority constituted by law made by competent legislature and includes anybody owned, controlled or substantially financed directly or indirectly by funds provided by the government. While deciding the status of any...