-The Hindu Bangalore: The Lokayukta Special Court on Wednesday convicted L. Govindaraju, Bruhat Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) councillor for Ganesh Mandir ward, for demanding and accepting a bribe and sentenced him to four years’ rigorous imprisonment, besides fining him Rs. 90,000. Barely three months after he was elected, Govindaraju (Congress) was caught red-handed by Lokayukta sleuths accepting a bribe of Rs. 2 lakh from Uday Kumar, a builder, in July 2010. The Lokayukta...

-DNA India’s already grim sex ratio scenario runs the risk of Turning worse with more women than men preferring sons over daughters. Historically women here have longed for the girl child much against the wishes of the men in their lives. But that appears a thing of the past, according to the latest statistics and programme implementation ministry report titled Women and men in India 2012. The October 31, 2012 issue of ministry...

-The Wall Street Journal   While modern crop engineering faces endless red tape, more slipshod cross-breeding gets a free pass. India has enjoyed signal successes with genetic engineering in agriculTure. But today the nation's relationship with this critical biotechnology is in total disarray, the victim of activists' scaremongering and government pandering. Delhi should know better. Following the adoption of the genetically improved varieties and intensive crop management practices of the Green Revolution, from 1960...

-Outlook Against the backdrop of the latest case of alleged honour killing, the Law Commission has recommended making it a non-bailable offence but disagreed with Supreme Court's suggestion that death sentence be applied to all such cases. The Commission had also asked the government to explore the possibility of a new law to prohibit unlawful caste assemblies (like Khaps) which take decisions to condemn marriages not prohibited by law. "No person or any...

-The Economic Times CHENNAI: Scientists of IIT-Kanpur have thrown the kitchen sink at a high-tech solution to a messy problem: How to keep the world's largest railway network clean and prevent corrosion of lines when train toilets unload waste directly on the tracks. Bio-toilets developed by the Indian Railways and Defence Research and Development Organization have earned praise from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, but IIT scientists say they are neither environment-friendly nor...