-The Hindu The ordinance seeking to amend the Representation of the People Act interferes with the exercise of judicial power Bill LXII of 2013, namely, The Representation of the People (Second Amendment and Validation) Bill, 2013 is pending before Parliament. I examine here whether the Bill, when passed as an Act or its provisions promulgated as an Ordinance, will be unconstitutional or not. Declared principle The constitutional principle applicable in a situation analogous to...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Over six lakh people could die if an earthquake of the intensity like the one that devastated Shillong in 1897 were to strike the Northeast today, says a preliminary study by the National Disaster Management Authority. These findings have prompted the NDMA to undertake a project, including a mega mock drill on how state and non-state agencies in the Northeast would respond in such a scenario. The NDMA had...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday forced the Centre to stop clinical trials of 162 new drugs or chemical entities which had been cleared by the expert committee for testing on human beings in India. A bench of Justices R M Lodha and Shiva Kirti Singh was about to pass an order restraining the Centre from going ahead with these clinical trials when additional solicitor general Sidharth...

-The Hindustan Times In recent years, there has been a constant stream of international attention given to the Indian middle class. Thanks to the expansion of this class, India's image has dramatically changed since the 1990s. Instead of the narrative about grinding poverty, India is now seen as the heart of new capitalism that is associated with high rates of growth as well as the consumerist elite and middle classes. The...

-The Indian Express The Supreme Court order restricting authorities from denying a benefit or service to any citizen of India for not having an Aadhaar card has put the Congress-led government, which had made Aadhaar the basis of its ambitious and overarching Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT) scheme, in a tight spot. The idea behind linking DBT - which aims at eliminating middlemen and plugging leakages in schemes - to Aadhaar was sound,...