-Reuters   PERLE: As a shiny red harvester bounces across the black earth into the first row of sugar cane, excited schoolchildren run after it and several dozen men stand gaping in the wake of its swift progress. It's the first time that Perle, a village on the banks of the Krishna river in Maharashtra state, has seen a machine used for cutting the tough cane. "This machine will harvest my entire field today,"...

Advocate Harish Salve told a Supreme Court constitution bench, which is thinking of framing guidelines for the reporting of court cases, that it was within the court’s powers to define the extent of freedom of speech and expression when it came in conflict with the right to life. Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia asked Salve on Wednesday: “If not guidelines, then what do we call them?” “This is a declaration of the law,”...

-The Times of India Taking a cue from the RBI governor D Subbarao, market leader Indian Oil Corporation indulged in grand standing on Tuesday by saying state-run retailers would raise petrol price by almost Rs 10 per litre, if the government did not reduce excise duty or did not compensate their Rs 49-crore daily loss on the fuel. "We have been very patient, not raising prices since December despite our cost of...

A new report underlines the benefits of organic farming in the age of cLIMate change While addressing a conference on the National Water Week this week, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh underlined the brewing water crisis. It could as well have been called the ‘National Water Weak’ — for this precious commodity for life is struggling to survive. The maximum blame for wastage of water is often put at the doors of...

The Supreme Court's recent mandate that private unaided non-minority schools should reserve 25 per cent of seats for underprivileged children is being hailed as a landmark ruling. The spirit of the decision is indeed laudable as it reflects the egalitarian ethos of the Right to Education (RTE) Act. Thus, as private schools open their doors to children from marginalised sections of society, the government pats itself on the back for...