-The Times of India   UP Lokayukta Justice N K Mehrotra has recommended registration of a case and a CBI and Enforcement Directorate probe against former state minister Babu Singh Kushwaha under the Prevention of Corruption and Money Laundering Act.  The Lokayukta has found him prima facie guilty of large-scale anomalies in allotment of mines and other financial irregularities and forwarded a report to chief minister Mayawati for necessary action.  "There were three specific...

Questionable drug trials on mentally challenged persons by doctors in Indore emphasise the need for strict enforcement of medical ethics. IN what appears to be a page out of Robin Cook's medical thriller, government and private doctors in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, reportedly carried out clinical trials of various medicines on some 233 patients who had gone to them seeking psychiatric treatment. As in Cook's famous book Coma, in which a medical...

-CNN-IBN   Contrary to the dominant narrative that areas where Naxalites are strong are where the state has been absent, for the last 100-150 years, there has been a gradual expansion of the state in tribal areas regardless of whether the people want it or not. However, the state has been expanding in the wrong areas. You have an extension of the forest department, the bureaucracy, the patwari and the forest guard....

In the absence of legislation to protect women from sexual harassment at the workplace, the Supreme Court in 1997 laid down guidelines in the Vishaka vs State of Rajasthan in 1997. Thirteen years later, Parliament came up with the “Protection of Women against Sexual Harassment at Workplace Bill, 2010”. However, the Bill sees sexual harassment at the workplace not as a criminal offence but as a mere civil wrong, the...

Yesterday was the last day of the Auto Expo 2012 in New Delhi. It should have been the first day of ending our obsession with cars and instead, realise what this fascination is doing to our insides.  Over a decade ago, Delhi was a heroic city. It had successfully reduced air pollution by shifting buses and three-wheelers from diesel to CNG. But now, Delhi's residents are choking again. Recently, this paper...