-The Indian Express The central empowered committee of the Supreme Court has asked the Rajasthan government to immediately stop mining activities allowed around Sariska in "blatant violation" of the court's orders and name the officers responsible so that "appropriate action" can be taken against them. The decision to allow mining activities within one kilometre of the Sariska tiger reserve and Jamua Ramgarh sanctuary was taken at a meeting chaired by then acting...

-The Business Standard Scheme faces pincer attack with a proposed higher proportion of expenditure on material, reducing the budget available to pay wages The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) faces a pincer attack under the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, with parallel moves promising to shrink and mutate the nature of the scheme. Two of the moves have been revealed - a proposed higher proportion of expenditure on material,...

-CNN-IBN New York: India has performed poorly in removing gender-based disparities, ranking 114 out of 142 countries in World Economic Forum's 2014 gender gap index, scoring below average on parameters like economic participation, educational attainment and health and survival. India's slipped 13 spots from its 2013's ranking of 101 on the Gender Gap Index by the World Economic Forum. India is part of the 20 worst-performing countries on the labour force participation,...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: Debunking the popular belief that the incidence of breast cancer is rising among India's younger women, doctors from Indian's premier cancer hospital in Parel say the typical patient is, more often than not, in her 50s and lives in an urban area. "We have conducted a 20-year analysis of breast cancer rates among the Indian population and found that while the rate of breast cancer is definitely...

-Livemint The petition challenged NPPA's decision of withdrawing its internal guideline to set prices of non-essential drugs New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday refused to entertain a petition challenging a decision by the country's drug price regulator to withdraw its internal guideline to set prices of non-essential drugs. Earlier this year, the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) issued a guideline empowering itself to cap the prices of 108 non-essential drugs, attracting...