-The Business Standard    Draft health insurance guidelines must not remain on paper The insurance regulator’s draft guidelines on health insurance were necessary, given the segment has been plagued with high loss ratios, low penetration and persistent customer complaints. The draft, which proposes changes in every facet – product structure, renewability and claims settlement – is a thoroughly pro-customer document and seeks to plug the various loopholes that have been used to make...

Yet-to-be-made public report dismisses environmental concerns The high-level committee set up by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) to study the socio-economic and ecological impacts of the proposed bauxite mining in Andhra Pradesh’s Visakhapatnam district has submitted its final report  favouring mining. The committee concludes mining will not have any significant negative impact on the ecology. At the same time it recommends settling all claims under the Forest Rights...

Left Wing Extremism (LWE) is the foremost problem of Orissa and the most daunting challenge for CM Naveen Patnaik, whose 12-year tenure has witnessed a rapid rise in intensity and spread of Maoist insurgency in the state.  Twentyfour of the 30 districts are now affected. Orissa has become a refuge for Maoist cadres who freely migrate to neighbouring regions.  In many of the troubled territories, especially in south-western parts of the state,...

Friday's murder of Brahmeshwar Singh, chief of the outlawed Ranvir Sena (a private army owing allegiance to the powerful upper caste Bhumihars) in Bhojpur, 71 km from Patna, could become a major test for the seven-year-old Nitish Kumar government's continued ability to maintain social harmony in Bihar. Within hours of the killing in the early hours, Singh's supporters went on the rampage, upsetting the delicate caste equilibrium in south Bihar,...

Giving a twist to the series of probes by the CBI and the queue by the accused to secure bail from lower courts, a CBI court judge was suspended by the Andhra Pradesh High Court for allegedly accepting bribe to grant bail to mining baron Gali Janardhan Reddy. The High Court on Thursday suspended T Pattabhirama Rao, first additional special judge for CBI cases, Hyderabad. However, the High Court did not...