-The Indian Express Jaipur: Kanwar Lal, BJP MLA from Aklera who allegedly beat up members of a civil society group during an accountability march last month, has 20 criminal cases registered against him at two police stations in his constituency. He was also arrested once. Of these, in nine investigations, most involving breaking into houses and tearing up copies of a religious book, his name was later removed, six are pending in Courts,...

-Business Standard Keeps records of deliberations and biosafety data under lock Keeping its agenda, records of discussions and results of safety trials under wraps, the environment ministry’s Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) is set to decide next week whether it is safe to commercially grow genetically modified mustard. The committee is scheduled to meet on February 5 and could make a final recommendation on what could be India’s first commercially-grown genetically modified...

-The Hindu New Delhi: No lessons were learned; in fact it is unlikely that any can be learned from the Delhi Government’s odd-even experiment earlier this month as air quality data from the 15-day period has thrown up inconclusive results. After being pulled up by Courts for Delhi’s abysmal air quality, the government had announced on December 4, 2015, that it would conduct an experiment to reduce vehicular traffic, thereby reducing pollution....

-The Telegraph Bangalore: Two Karnataka districts have shown the way forward by e-filing chargesheets through a dedicated network that automatically routes the documents to the respective Courts in tamper-proof form. The pilot project that started in 2014 has thrown up new possibilities in the way the judiciary and police function, with thousands of chargesheets having been e-filed from Mysore and Mandya. The state now plans to take the change to other districts. Around...

-The Hindu More significant than the issue of whether women should be allowed entry into the Sabarimala temple is the question of whether secular judges ought to be the ones making that call. The more the state takes over the task of social reform, the less likely is the desired change to emerge from within the society Last week, the Supreme Court declared that it would hear a public interest litigation (PIL)...