-First Post While the six biggest political parties have chosen to ignore the order to come under the Right to Information Act, a handful of regional political parties have embraced it wholeheartedly. However, that won't force the bigger parties to change their ways any time soon. On 3 June, the Central Information Commission (CIC) declared the six national political parties, Congress, BJP, CPI, CPI (M), NCP and BSP, as public authorities. However, the...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Centre intends to exempt political parties from RTI scrutiny on the ground that they are not "substantially funded" by the government and so are not required to reveal details such donors and other funding sources. The government expects to consult political parties to firm up a consensus on undoing the Central Information Commission order putting parties under the ambit of the Right to Information Act...

-The Times of India KOLKATA: More than 13,000 women and children from Bengal went untraceable in 2011. Where did they go? Were they abducted? Were they sold for money? Are they still alive? None has an answer. The year before, around 28,000 women and children went missing and 19,000 of them remained untraceable. Missing women and children are ever increasing numbers in government files and reports by various organizations. But for their...

-The Hindu     The much-awaited Drug (Prices Control) Order 2013 has disappointed millions of patients, as it lacks a fair formula to fix the price ceiling and leaves important drug classes out of regulation. The result: High out-of-pocket spending on medicines will continue As far as intentions go, the Drug (Prices Control) Order 2013 is aimed at making critical drugs affordable and available to the public, while preserving a rationale for manufacture by...

-The Hindu Uttarakhand reiterates that our rulers have contemptuous disregard for the advice of the best scientists and would rather listen to contractors and builders to whom they are beholden for funds In the early 1980s, while doing research on the environmental history of Uttarakhand, I sometimes visited the library of the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology in Dehradun. Most of the journals in the library dealt with geology and earth sciences,...