-The Indian Express Recently, the prime minister raised concerns about RTI applications encroaching on the right to privacy. At this juncture, it may be worth remembering the case of “Auto Shankar” and his diary. About 20 years ago, an auto driver called Gauri Shankar, who had murdered more than six teenage girls, was convicted and sentenced to death. Before the appeals process was exhausted, he started writing a diary, which was...

-Outlook Could scientists have got the impacts of climate change on food supply wildly wrong? I believe we might have made a mistake: a mistake whose consequences, if I am right, would be hard to overstate. I think the forecasts for world food production could be entirely wrong. Food prices are rising again, partly because of the damage done to crops in the northern hemisphere by ferocious weather. In the US, Russia...

-The Times of India Keen to snap out of a policy coma and rev up an anaemic economy, the government is looking to slash " green tape" by making lease extensions simpler, amending restrictions on work beginning on projects where forest land is involved and easing expansion norms for mines. Sifting through highly polarizing arguments, new initiatives aim to reduce points of contention that have often locked ministers in charge of economic...

-Outlook Corruption is not just an offence but also undermines others human rights leading to systematic economic crimes, the Supreme Court today held. The apex court said a public servant, who is found guilty of corruption, has to be treated as corrupt until he is exonerated by a superior court. "Corruption is not only a punishable offence but also undermines human rights, indirectly violating them, and systematic corruption, is a human rights' violation...

-The Hindu Rebel IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt has secured permission from the Gujarat High Court to inspect some of the official documents relating to the 2002 communal clashes in Gujarat, before submitting his final affidavit before the G.T. Nanavati-Akshay Mehta Judicial Inquiry Commission probing into the Godhra train carnage and the subsequent violence. A Division Bench of the High Court, comprising Chief Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya and Justice J.B. Pardiwala, has directed the...