-Hindustan Times Most complaints relate to violation of norms at construction and demolition sites, dumping of garbage, open burning of waste. The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), the country’s apex pollution control body, has received more than 3,000 complaints through its social media accounts, email and mobile app, from citizens relating to violations of green norms that is adding to the deteriorating air quality of the national capital. We have received more than...

-Scroll.in The India Spend initiative has found as many as 90% of religious hate crimes since 2009 have occurred after the BJP took power at the Centre in 2014. The election results in Brazil last month came as another troubling reminder of the direction in which an increasing number of countries are careening. In nation after nation, a growing number of people are voting for leaders who stoke hatred against minorities and...

-The Hindu Outgoing Central Information Commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu flags the impact of growing vacancies in the Commission Central Information Commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu, who took on the Prime Minister’s Office and the Reserve Bank of India in a case dealing with the non-disclosure of wilful defaulters of major bank loans, warned on his last day hearing RTI appeals that by December, he and three other CICs would retire, leaving the Central Information Commission...

-The Hindu Environment Ministry and inland waterways body differed on need for clearances India’s longest waterway project, one terminal of which was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier this week, was made possible only after a high-power Committee of Ministers and senior officials from multiple Ministries overruled the recommendations of experts appointed by the Environment Ministry. The latter had recommended public consultations and a full-fledged environment clearance, documents made available through...

-Hindustan Times But the danger of allowing ingress to nationally critical sectors, like telecommunications, to countries that are not friendly must now be a matter of immediate national concern The debate on whether or not to censor information has been going on for centuries. The term ‘censor’ in Roman times originally referred to the function of special magistrates assigned to supervise public morals and, so long as this remained the remit, the...