-The Hindu Farmers’ protest against the proposed 1,980-MW power plant in the trans-Yamuna Karchhna tehsil of Allahabad district entered its 777th day on Tuesday. While the district administration recently served a month’s ultimatum on the farmers to return the compensation they had received for land acquisition, the farmers told The Hindu that they would not be able to repay the amount, regardless of the ultimatum. Meanwhile, they say they will continue agitating at...

-The Indian Express The government’s proposal to price-control CERTain drugs will create more problems than it will solve From clothes to cars, prices of consumer products the world over are determined taking into account input costs, margins and competition, popularly called the cost-based pricing system. Departing from this sound, fair, tried and tested principle of commerce, the government’s new drug pricing policy, approved by the Group of Ministers headed by Sharad Pawar,...

-The Indian Express Haryana, a state rocked by a number of rapes of Dalit girls and women over the past month, rape cases have nearly doubled in seven years, according to National Crime Records Bureau figures. And the state manages only one conviction in every eight cases of crime against Dalits, last year’s records show. Rape cases have increased from 386 in 2004 to 733 in 2011, with most years showing a...

-The Economic Times The home ministry has sought the opinion of all states on whether offences like terrorism and organised crime can be treated as federal frames. It has forwarded the 5th Report of the second Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC) to states, asking for their comments on each of the 152 recommendations that relate to state governments. This report, submitted to the government in June 2007, is among the only two...

-Mainstream Weekly Intense and motivated propaganda, powerful national and international diplomatic pressure, verging on pure and simple arms-twisting of the kind the Third World has been facing for decades by means of the active role of the econo-mic hit-men in the policy establishments, huge cash-back lobbying, both in India and abroad, blunt attempts to bamboozle the persons holding key positions in India’s policy establishment through a combination of hissing and kissing...