-The Hindu Employees from the community say they have poor representation in officer ranks The Supreme Court on Friday asked the Centre and public sector banking authorities to consider providing reservation to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes employees in promotion to officers’ ranks at all levels. “The grievance of the employees belonging to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes category is that there is negligible representation of employees belonging to their community in...

-The Hindu A key to understanding the effect of driving restrictions on emission levels would be to analyse what substitutions citizens will make for private vehicle trips during restriction hours It will be an unusual start to the New Year for Delhi. The city will be subject to the much-discussed driving restrictions, according to which between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. most private vehicle operators will only be able to take their...

-The Hindu Business Line The Centre must act now as a year of medical mishaps across the nation comes to an end A little over three months ago, the country watched in horror when news unfolded of the death of a seven-year-old in Delhi from dengue and the subsequent suicide by his young parents. The harrowing experience of getting a simple thing like a bed in a hospital when you need it was...

-The Hindu Chennai: Completely unprepared for disasters: the hospitals in Chennai — private as well as government — were particularly vulnerable, improvising solutions as the situation developed. As water levels rose, Chennai saw every single system associated with modern life abysmally fail —houses collapsed, roads caved in, communication networks went down, sewage pipelines were wrecked, and carcasses floated on roads. Patients in government and private hospitals across the city took a beating. Completely...

-The Indian Express It doesn’t have sufficient power and independence, and seems unworkable. The absence of an adequately independent and empowered body to investigate and prosecute allegations of corruption, especially relating to the rich and the powerful, has been a longstanding concern in India. The Central Vigilance Commission’s (CVC) relative independence has proved ineffective as it has few resources at its disposal while the CBI, which is relatively empowered, lacks independence —...