-The Indian Express Sahara India, which is already being investigated by market regulator Sebi, has now also come under the scanner of the provident fund department and is amongst the top defaulters of the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) in the country. Five of the group firms including Sahara India Financial Corporation and the former Sahara Airlines are part of the top 50 companies in the country that have defaulted on depositing...

-The Telegraph Guwahati: Gauhati High Court has taken up a suo motu PIL against the Calcutta-based Saradha Group and similar deposit collecting companies for allegedly duping scores of investors in Assam of their hard-earned money. Official sources said the high court recently took up the PIL (15/2013) after taking cognisance of Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS) general secretary and RTI activist Akhil Gogoi's letter to Chief Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel. Akhil had alleged...

-The Hindu   One candidate asked to withdraw nomination, two others reprimanded Bangalore: The Loksatta Party, which is set to make its debut in the coming Karnataka Assembly elections promising "clean" politics, has run into trouble with three of its candidates taking public positions that appear to run counter to the party's stated ideological vision and standpoint. Phanisai Bhardwaj, the party's candidate for Bangalore South, has said on his facebook page: "Apolish [abolish] reservation...

-Frontline PESA, which is seen as an enabling law for tribal self-governance, is violated brazenly by both the Union government and State governments in the name of development. SINCE October 2012, the Ministry of Rural Development of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government has apparently been engaged in an exercise to evolve a "National Land Reforms Policy". Over these months, the Ministry wrote to various State governments, highlighting the importance of...

-Frontline   The Supreme Court's ruling against Novartis' patent claim for the cancer drug Glivec paves the way for generic drug companies to keep crucial, life-saving drugs affordable to the common people. By V. VENKATESAN IN their 112-page judgment delivered on April 1, Justice Aftab Alam and Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai of the Supreme Court began with a simple proposition: in order to understand what the law really is, it is essential to...