Concern for public health goes up in smoke   India's leading cigarette manufacturer, ITC Ltd, made financial contributions of Rs. 6.78 crore in the last two years to all major political parties in the country, causing public health activists here to question the possible interference of tobacco companies “in the Central government's efforts to bring in tougher anti-tobacco laws in the country.” Figures disclosed by ITC Ltd — and released recently by activists...

-The Indian Express Inmates of the Apna Ghar shelter in Rohtak told a four-member committee that visited them today that they were gangraped by Haryana Police officials, who made them dance naked and forcibly took them out of the home. According to sources, two of the inmates — one deaf and mute and the other mentally challenged — said that when they got pregnant, the incharge of the home stepped on their...

-The Hindu Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's decency and politics of reconciliation have been his undoing Last fortnight I had cloistered myself away in the hills for a spot of reflection and writing. I had chosen to deprive myself of blessings like newspapers, the television and internet; telephone connectivity was at best erratic and in any case it was turned off most of the time. During one occasional moment of connectedness I got...

Five months after two British newspapers released a controversial video film showing scantily clad Jarawa tribal women dancing for tourists in return for food and money, the government finally acted on Thursday: the Union Cabinet approved the promulgation of a law that brings into effect a buffer zone in the 5 km radius around the Jarawa tribal settlements in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and provides for imprisonment up to...

By recognising the rights of the transgender community, the state is not doling out largesse; it is only performing its duty under the Constitution They came beautifully dressed, some a tad brightly, but all beautifully and proudly, there was much chatter, and a lot of sisterhood. It was the public hearing of transgenders at Delhi. An excluded group must definitely feel cheered in a gathering, where the members of that group...