-The Hindu Caste discrimination takes on insidious forms in higher education institutions across the country, according to a report When 35 medical students — all Scheduled Caste candidates — failed en masse in the same subject — Physiology — they cried foul. Delhi’s Vardhman Mahavir Medical College, where they were studying, turned a deaf ear to their grievances, according to a recently-released report by Rajya Sabha MP Bhalchandra Mungekar, who was appointed...

-NDTV The Supreme Court has been told that the water around the former Union Carbide plant at Bhopal is contaminated and not fit for consumption. The report was filed today by the Indian Institute of Toxicology Research (IITR), Lucknow, which collected 26 samples from around the factory, from where a poisonous gas leak in 1984 led to the deaths of more than 15,000 people, creating the world's largest industrial disaster. The leak...

-The Hindu The work of India’s supreme auditor cannot be put through an audit unless the institution itself initiates one The relentless campaign against the Comptroller and Auditor-General, of an unprecedented ferocity, compels me to write again on the subject. First, has the CAG caused a political and constitutional crisis, as some have argued? All that the CAG does is to submit audit reports. Any audit report, if it is a good report,...

-The Times of India The HRD ministry has overwhelmingly supported the proposed Bill that seeks to give reservation to SC/ST employees in promotion. But the scenario in HRD's own backyard is anything but enthusiastic.  Just over 32% of sanctioned teaching posts for SCs and 41.8% for STs in 40 central universities are occupied. This includes premier institutions like the Delhi University, Jawaharlal NehruUniversity, Aligarh Muslim University and University of Hyderabad. Vacancies exist...

-The Telegraph A government laboratory has detected cancer-causing fungal toxins exceeding safety limits in samples of ultra-high-temperature processed milk, suggesting that a contamination problem highlighted eight years ago remains unresolved. Scientists at the Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI), Mysore, have found a compound called aflatoxin M1, a fungal product labelled a carcinogen, in about 20 per cent of the samples of UHT milk they examined. Earlier studies in India over the past...