-Live Mint To maintain his constant stream of RTI petitions, Agrawal says he gets ideas from day-to-day observations, news reports, government insiders, whistle-blowers and journalists. In the summer of 1985, a cloth merchant in Chandni Chowk, the crowded market in the old quarters of Delhi, received a call in response to a letter he had written to the papers asking why his favourite weekly television serial, Rajani, could not be aired daily...

-Outlook Anyone with internet access can get an education—from the best in their fields The Supreme Court last week allowed online counselling for admission to undergraduate courses in medical colleges. Under the scheme, students applying for all-India seats in medical colleges would be able to receive counselling in choosing their colleges online. While this is but a small development, for just a section of seats in medical colleges across India, coming...

-The Hindustan Times The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is probing irregularities in the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) scheme in Uttar Pradesh, is likely to register as many as 50 more cases. It will help the investigating agency track ‘beneficiaries’ who allegedly siphoned off funds from the office of chief medical officers (CMO) in 72 districts. The number of cases to be filed by the CBI will spiral as it will...

A scientific and public scrutiny of the methodology used by the expert panel will only add to the efforts to save the Western Ghats. On May 23, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) Posted the report of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) on its website honouring a landmark judgment of the Central Information Commission triggered by an activist seeking access to the material. In this judgment, the CIC...

-The Hindustan Times The next time you hear a knock on your door, it may turn out to be your friendly local health worker with a choice of contraceptives for you. And who will you have to thank for that? None else than health and family welfare minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, whose innovations in the field of population are matchless. Well, don't hold your breath just yet, this is one scheme...