-The Hindu MUMBAI: Around the time that Shiv Sainiks were blackening Sudheendra Kulkarni's face on Monday morning, a Pakistani girl and her mother were getting ready to leave Mumbai with warm memories of a 49-day stay and gratitude for Indians. Some Indians had, after all, contributed almost Rs 13 lakh to finance 15-year-old Karachi resident Saba Tariq Ahmed's treatment for Wilson's disease, a disorder that results in poisonous accumulation of copper in...

-The Indian Express A number of significant disclosures were forced by the RTI, including the information regarding 2G and Commonwealth Games and so on. The Right to Information Act is now 10 years old — long enough to give us a fair idea of how it has performed on the ground. Riding on a huge wave of civil society activism, it started on a positive note and made unexpected impact early...

-The Hindu Government sources told The Hindu that at PDS packaging centres, new unbranded bags were being replaced with used ones. Jute bags meant for packaging of foodgrains under the Public Distribution System (PDS) allegedly provided their manufacturers — in league with some officials of procuring State government agencies, quality insurance inspectors and middlemen — an opportunity to siphon off thousands of crores in government revenue. So serious is the scam that the...

-The Indian Express Decades of mismanagement have hobbled India’s mental health programme An event commemorating World Mental Health week opened at the WHO in Geneva this week. At a key session, the Disease Control Priorities project released its recommendations to governments to address the burden of mental disorders. This was timely for India, for few countries have witnessed so many high-profile debates related to mental health while ignoring the centrality of mental health...

-Economic and Political Weekly India needs to find an optimal patenting regime that will safeguard incentives for innovation while simultaneously ensuring that medicines are available at reasonable prices. Viswanath Pingali (viswanath@iimahd.ernet.in) is at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. Chirantan Chatterjee (chirantan@gmail.com) is at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. We gratefully acknowledge several discussions with Kensuke Kubo. Please click here to Access the article. ...