-The Hindu   Top civil society bodies are challenging the government's ‘counter-affidavit' in the Paid News case which seeks to gut the Election Commission's powers In a major twist to the Ashok Chavan vs. Madhav Kinhalkar legal battle (more notorious as the "Paid News" scandal), leading civil society organisations and eminent individuals have approached the Supreme Court to implead themselves into the case. Their intervention application, moved by advocate Prashant Bhushan, minces no words...

-The Hindu   Last week's jail sentence for two prominent Shiv Sainiks is historic as it upholds the first such conviction against a member of that party Sent to jail for two months and fined Rs.5,000. Twenty years after their crime, this was the sentence handed down last week by a sessions court to two Shiv Sena leaders. This was for their provocative speeches during the Mumbai riots following the demolition of the...

-The Hindu Business Line Mother Nature possesses bountiful natural resources. After all, it is not for nothing that our planet is today supporting a seven billion human population, besides a large number of other living beings with varying survival requirements. Till around the end of the 19th century, agriculture, in the form it was practised, provided more or less enough food to sustain the human population of that time. This is...

-Outlook Reserve Bank of India (RBI) today said it has completed investigations against banks following the Cobrapost expose and will take action if they are found guilty of violating prudential banking norms. "We have done investigations, we have prepared an internal report. There are processes to be followed to take investigations to its logical closure... "The first is action against individual institutions who are involved in practises which are not consistent with the...

-The Business Standard The scheme can be named as 'Social Security Scheme' or 'We The People Scheme'; would not offer high returns like chit funds Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today proposed to launch a government-sponsored deposit-taking scheme to provide a secured saving option to the rural people of the state as an alternative. "To provide proper facility in the wake of growing financial insecurity, we are thinking of a social...