-The Times of India   The Supreme Court on Monday said pricing of petrol and diesel determined by a complex mechanism fell exclusively within executive's policy domain and refused to entertain a public interest litigation demanding rollback of repeated sharp hikes in motor fuel prices.  Ex-MP P C Thomas had filed the appeal in the apex court challenging a Kerala high court's decision to dismiss his PIL questioning "irrational and hypothetical fixation of...

-The Hindu The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has called for legal measures to protect the rights of Bengalis from erstwhile East Bengal (now Bangladesh) and a solution through judicial process to the problem of suspected foreigners living illegally in Assam. In a resolution adopted at its 20th party congress that concluded here on Monday, the party urged the government to honour the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's promise of sympathetically considering the...

There is no case whatsoever to construct a single poverty line based on a calorie or expenditure norm; all such lines are arbitrary and do not take into account the different dimensions of poverty. It is far better to focus on disaggregated information on a variety of parameters – education, housing, clothing, health, etc – which can give us unambiguous information about the different facets of poverty over the course...

-The Times of India Slow implementation of the Right to Education Act raises concern as only a year left to fulfil norms Unhappy with the slow progress in implementing the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, a memorandum was submitted to the Prime Minister last week by theRTE Forum. The RTE Act, which came into force on April 1, 2009, guarantees the provision of free and compulsory education...

-The Telegraph The Union urban development ministry has proposed three new taxes on private vehicle owners: on vehicle purchases, petrol and insurance. The aim is to fund public transport in cities and deter the use of private vehicles The Rs 40,000 crore that the ministry proposes to raise annually through the “green surcharge”, “green cess” and “urban transport tax” is to go to a national urban transport fund that will finance transport schemes. Urban...