-The Hindu Business Line   The media have got it wrong on price control reversal Recently, there has been a flutter in various media channels and newspapers as to how the Modi Government has reversed certain drug price control measures announced in July 2014. As a result, we are told, prices of these drugs would increase much more than pre-July levels. This was supposed to be a sequel to Modi's visit to the...

-PTI Washington: India-born Mexican scientist Sanjaya Rajaram has been awarded the World Food Prize 2014 for agricultural research that spurred an astonishing increase in world wheat production. The 71-year-old Rajaram, however, played down his contribution and thanked farmers for their "innovative spirit". "It is a collective achievement rather than that of a single person," the scientist told the award ceremony audience at the Iowa State University in America. The award "honours the innovative spirit...

-The Hindustan Times New Delhi: As a headless Central Information Commission (CIC) controversially celebrates nine years of the transparency law behind closed doors, there are indications that the CIC chief's absence has already dented the watchdog's autonomy. Being without a chief has placed the commission on a weak legal footing. According to documents accessed under the RTI law, the government has taken control over the CIC's purse strings and placed them in...

-Deccan Chronicle Under the stewardship of Union rural development minister Nitin Gadkari, things are looking far from good for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, the 2005 law passed with cross-party support under UPA-1 that came to be hailed as the world's largest rural job guarantee scheme although, at home, some fair criticisms were also levelled at the way the project worked on the ground. The critics pointed to...

-The Third Pole Cities and villages in India will soon run out of potable water if current trends continue, warns senior water official India's groundwater tables are plunging at an alarming rate with reserves in some states dwindling to critical levels, according to the latest report from the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) - the apex body under the Ministry of Water Resources. Over 16% of the country's groundwater resources are ‘over-exploited' -...