-The Hindu The question that must be asked, is whether India is willing to compromise on its laws and the safety and rights of its citizens to protect the business interests of reactor suppliers In 2010, under pressure from multinational nuclear suppliers, the Manmohan Singh government pushed through a law to protect them from the consequences of a nuclear accident. The law makes it impossible for victims to sue the supplier, even...

-The Times of India PUNE: The much-anticipated extension of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, to the pre-school and secondary education may still take time to come through. The act, which at present covers primary and upper primary schools, provides for free and compulsory education to children between the ages of six and 14 and directs government, aided and non-minority unaided schools to reserve 25% of...

-New Yorker A couple of weeks ago, Munich Re, one of the world’s largest reinsurance firms, issued a study titled “Severe Weather in North America.” According to the press release that accompanied the report, “Nowhere in the world is the rising number of natural catastrophes more evident than in North America.” The number of what Munich Re refers to as “weather-related loss events,” and what the rest of us would probably...

-The Hindustan Times Government officials riding high on hopes that privacy concerns could blunt the right to information are in for disappointment. An expert panel set up to build a FRAmework for a privacy regulation in India has brushed aside suggestions that the information law was trampling upon privacy of public servants or individuals in public life. The Justice (retd) Ajit Prakash Shah panel has told the government that privacy was only...

-Al Jazeera Treaty to ban chemicals that harmed the ozone layer came about when there was consensus between science and politics. In 1974, chemists Mario Molina and FRAnk Sherwood Rowland published a landmark article that demonstrated the ability of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) to break down the ozone layer, the atmospheric region that plays a vital role in shielding humans and other life from harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation. It marked the opening salvo of...